WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 


^f^v 


WITH  BOTHA'S  ARMY 


BY 

J.    P.    KAY    ROBINSON 

WITH    INTRODUCTORY   LETTER   BY 
GENERAL    BOTHA 


NEW   YORK 
E.   P.   DUTTON   k   COMPANY 

681   FIFTH   AVENUE 
1916 


{All  rights  reserved) 


EDWARD     KAY     ROBINSON 

THIS    COLLECTION    OF    SKETCHES 

IS    FONDLY    INSCRIBED 

BY    HIS    SON 

THE    AUTHOR 


518  iG 


CONTENTS 


General  Botha's  Letter 

CHAPTER 

I.    The  Occupation  of  Luderitzbucht 


II.  The  Real  Thing  . 

III.  Sandstorms  and  Ceremonies 

IV.  Sights  and  Smells 

V.  Alarums  and  Excursions 

VI.  A  Night  Ride,  and  After 

VII.  Big  Game,  but  Small  Bags 

VIII.  War's  Grim  Jests  and  Morals 


PAGE 
9 

II 

27 

44 
6o 
88 

112 

133 
146 


V 


Prime  Minister's  Office, 
Cape  Town, 
24M  November ^  1915- 

Dear  Mr.  Robinson — 

I  have  not  had  time  to  read  through 
the  proofs  of  your  book  "  With  Botha's 
Army,"  but  a  hurried  perusal  thereof  has 
given  me  much  pleasure.  It  contains  an 
able  and  good  description  of  the  fine  spirit 
which  animated  our  army  in  German  South - 
West  Africa,  and  of  the  good  humour  which 
kept  our  men  cheerful  under  most  trying 
conditions . 

I    have    pleasure    in    recommending   your 
book  to  the  public, 

Yours  faithfully 


WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

CHAPTER   I 
THE  OCCUPATION   OF  LUDERITZBUCHT 

The  story  of  the  campaign  of  German  South - 
West  Africa  is  written,  plain  for  all  time, 
across  the  sands  of  that  amazing  country, 
and  an  empty  bully-beef  tin,  half -buried  in 
the  flank  of  a  tawny  sand-dune,  is  eloquent 
of  most  of  its  detail. 

But  this,  of  course,  we  did  not  know  when, 
on  the  I  ith  of  September;,  1914,  we  packed 
our  horses  on  the  s.s.  Monarch,  and  our- 
selves aboard  the  Gaika  to  await  the  dice- 
throw  of  Chance.  It  is  true  that  we  were 
more  or  less  certain  as  to  our  destination, 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  our  knowledge 
on  this  point  was  strictly  unofficial,  and 
therefore  sinful. 

Not  that  we  greatly  cared,  however.  Our 
optimism   was   a   thing   colossal.      We   were 


12  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

going  to  finish  the  German  South-West  cam- 
paign in  three  months ;  we  would  spend 
Christmas  in  Cape  Town,  and  by  the  New 
Year  we  would  be  on  our  way  to  a  state 
entry  into  Berlin.  It  is  small  wonder,  then, 
if  we  felt  almost  casually  patriotic  as  we 
ploughed  past  Robben  Island  in  the  wake  of 
H.M.S.  Astrcea,  our  escort. 

The  Portuguese  explorers,  who  first  dis- 
covered the  place  which  held  our  destiny, 
called  it  Angra  Pequena ;  the  Germans,  who 
came  later,  re -christened  it  Luderitzbucht ; 
and  we,  who  were  a  portion  of  a  brigade 
or  a  fraction  of  a  division — we  never  knew 
which  ! — learned  subsequently  to  know  it  by 
a  number  of  other  names,  most  of  them 
inspired,  and  all  of  them  utterly  unprintable. 

Incidentally^  we  were  a  squadron  of  the 
Imperial  Light  Horse^  which  had  been 
weaned — too  early,  some  thought — from  its 
mother -regiment,  and  which  now,  some  five 
days  adrift  ujx)n  a  venture  of  the  waters, 
sucked  at  the  fingers  of  Rumour,  and  stared 
uneasily  at  a  dim  coastline  upheaved  above 
the  rim  of  troubled  waters.  Uneasily, 
because  the  "  rolling  veld  "  {vide  the 
English  Press),  whence  we  had  come,  had 
in  nowise  prepared  us  for  the  rolling  ocean. 


LUDERITZBUCHT  13 

and  the  waters  had  not  dealt  kindly  with  us. 
In  truth  we  were  a  very  sick  ship,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  some  amongst  us 
looked  upon  that  sudden  appearance  of  land, 
less  as  the  attainment  of  our  objective — for 
it  was  German  South-West  Africa — than  as 
a  violent  and  sympathetic  upheaval  on  the 
part  of  the  ocean  itself. 

At  any  time  a  terrible  thing,  sea-sickness 
becomes  invested  with  a  horrid  grandeur 
when  you  may  see,  as  I  have  seen,  whole 
squadrons  and  battalions  laying  their  all 
before  their  Maker.  A  great  leveller, 
though.  Pride  of  new-got  stars  and  pomp 
of  crowns  and  stripes  bow  before  it,  and 
a  mere  private  with  sea-legs  is  worth  a  dozen 
brigadiers  without.  With  us,  however,  there 
were  very  few  distinctions.  The  Armoury 
Guard,  posted  in  the  evil -smelling  hold, 
were  sick  as  they  presented  arms,  and  the 
visiting  orderly  officer  succumbed  as  un- 
affectedly as   he   returned  their  salute. 

Thus,  for  five  and  a  half  days,  we  voyaged 
— save  the  mark  !  We  spent  the  better  part 
of  two  days  balancing  ourselves  to  the 
thrust  of  cross -seas,  while  tugs  bellowed 
around  us,  and  the  Astrcea,  or  so  we  under- 
stood it,  disappeared  in  search  of  a  German 


14  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

South -West  Africa  of  which  our  navigators 
had  lost  all  reckoning — and  at  the  end  of 
that  grisly  time  the  tall  spike  of  a  light- 
house stood  out  upon  a  black  fang  of  rock 
and  a  white  snarl  of  broken  water,  and  we 
were  told  that  it  was  Luderitzbucht . 

There  was  magic  in  that  intimation.  Men 
who  had  not  been  sufficiently  interested  in 
things  even  to  accept  a  chance -sent  whisky - 
and -soda — these  were  the  very  worst  cases — 
suddenly  busied  themselves  in  cleaning 
neglected  rifles,  and  even,  when  they  thought 
that  no  one  was  looking,  in  surreptitious 
feelings  of  the  points   of  their  bayonets. 

Ah  !  Little  did  we  know  then  of  what 
was  to  follow.  But  the  bayonets  did  come 
in  useful  for  opening  tins  of  milk,  any- 
way I 

After  the  lighthouse  came  what  appeared 
to  be  a  land-locked  arm  of  the  sea.  That 
slid  astern  of  us,  and  was  followed  by  a 
more  or  less  well-defined  bay  that  ended 
abruptly  in  a  conglomeration  of  tin  and 
plaster,  and  red  and  green  roofs.  Luderitz- 
bucht beyond  any  shadow  of  doubt  !  What 
exactly  we  expected  I  do  not  know.  It 
seemed  feasible  that  the  place  might  be 
fortified  and  we  braced  ourselves. 


LUDERITZBUCHT  15 

Nothing  seemed  to  happen,  however.  The 
Astrcea  dropped  anchor  at  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  or  so  nearer  the  town,  and  that  was 
all.  The  Reuter  man,  who  used  to  write 
what  we  afterwards  learned  to  call  the 
**  Luderitzbucht  Society  Notes,"  would 
doubtless  have  said  that  she  trained  her 
guns  on  the  town.  Perhaps  she  did.  To 
us  she  merely  looked   supremely  bored. 

From  one  or  two  of  the  houses  white  flags 
that  looked  like  table-cloths  were  hysteri- 
cally waving.  It  was  distinctly  flattering, 
and  I  know  that  we  felt  immensely  forbear- 
ing. Then  some  one  saw  the  German  flag 
that  flaunted  its  garish  challenge  to  us  from 
the  lighthouse,  and  we  began  to  feel  then 
as  a  German  must,  I  think,  when  he  ceases 
to   be   a   German  and  becomes  a   Hun. 

•We  landed  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
It  was  a  very  quiet  affair.  The  few  inhabi- 
tants who  were  to  be  seen  about  tried  to 
look  as  if  they  hadn't  noticed  us,  although 
we  rather  more  than  filled  Luderitzbucht, 
and  the  Transvaal  Scottish  are  a  little  ob- 
trusive at  times.  There  were  a  lot  of  ladies, 
however — ladies  who  did  not  look  like  ordi- 
nary inhabitants,  and  who  stood  on  the 
verandas  of  the  houses   and  smiled  kindly 


i6  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

at  us.  We  blushed  by  battalions  and 
passed  on. 

We,  the  I.L.H.,  were  assigned  to  quarters 
in  what  was  called  the  "  Diamenten  Gesell- 
schaft."  When  we  got  there  it  was  dark, 
and  we  made  ourselves  as  comfortable  as 
we  could — those  of  us  that  were  not  on  guard 
— in  a  sort  of  donkey  kraal.  There  were 
some  fowls  there,  I  remember,  and  we 
performed  some  quite  creditable  atrocities 
with  our  bayonets.  Then — I  never  quite 
knew  how  started  the  whisper  that  grew  and 
was  flung  from  man  to  man  and  from  troop 
to  troop  until  the  whole  squadron  knew  it — 
"  Beer!  " 

Beer.  Yes  !  Dozens  upon  dozens  of  cases 
of  it.  Long,  beautifully  long  bottles  of  pale, 
cool -looking  Pilsener.  The  least  said  about 
it  the  better.  Indeed,  recollection  is  apt  to 
be  a  little  hazy  upon  the  point.  But  this 
I  know,  that  until  the  Headquarter  Staff  dis- 
covered that  in  tackling  German  South-West 
they  had  tackled  an  uncommonly  thirsty 
proposition,  and  sent  down  wagons  and  took 
it  away  from  us,  every  man  of  us  looked  at 
war,  if  not  through  rose-coloured  spectacles 
exactly,  at  least  through  gold -tinted  glasses. 

Months  later  that  same  beer  was  retailed 


LUDERITZBUCHT  17 

back  to  us  by  Supreme  Authority  at  nine- 
pence  the  bottle  !  Why  ninepence  ?  we  often 
wondered. 

The  first  really  distinct  phase  of  the  cam- 
paign was  camels.  They — there  were  three 
of  them — wandered  in  one  day  out  of  the 
desert  and  were  captured  by  the  Rand  Light 
Infantry.  Captured  !  Yes  !  I  think  that 
is  the  word.  The  R.L.I.,  however,  seemed 
vastly  more  impressed  than  were  the  camels. 

There  is  no  authentic  record  of  how, 
eventually,  the  camels  came  to  us,  but  we 
believe  it  was  something  after  this  manner  : 

Scene  :  Company  of  R.L.I,  seen  vaguely 
through  sandstorm.  More  vaguely  still, 
three  camels  looming  out  of  nowhere  in 
particular. 

Company  Colour  -  Sergeant  to  Company 
Officer :  '*  Beggin'  y'r  pardon,  sir !  But 
about  them  three   'ummin'   birds " 

Company  Officer  :  Good  God^  man  !  How 
the  devil  should  I  know?  Do  I  look  as  if 
I ?  Oh,  damn  it !  send  'em  up  to  Head- 
quarters." 

Follows  period  filled  in  by  mor*e  sandstorm, 
grunts  of  camels,  and  hearty  British  cheers, 
as  news  flies  around  that  R.L.I,  have  routed 
entire  German  Camel  Corps.     Then — 

2 


i8  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

Brigade-Major  to  Brigadier  :  "  Ahem  I 
Sir  !    Three  camels  have  just  turned  up " 

Brigadier  {absently)  :  Ah  !  Just  ask  them 
to  step  in,  will  you?" 

B.'M.  :    **  Camels,    I   said,   sir  !  " 

B,  :    "What?     The  devil  f' 

B.-M.:    "  No,  sir  !     Camels,  sir  I  " 

B.  :  "  Camels  !  Good  God  !  Where 
from?" 

B.-M,  :  "  They  didn't  say,  sir  !  What  are 
we  to  do  with  them,   sir?" 

B,  :  "  Do  with  them?  Um  !  Well— er, 
let  me  see.  Um  I  Er !  Oh !  Confound 
it  1    give   em  to  the  I.L.H.  !  " 

So  we  got  them.  And,  until  some  eight 
months  later,  when  the  squadron  left  Luder- 
itzbucht  for  Walvis,  we   kept  them. 

There  was  nothing  very  lovable  about 
them.  They  bit  us  and  they  sneered  at  us, 
they  frightened  our  horses  and  they  smelt 
abominably.  But  they  aroused  the  envy  and 
the  admiring  interest  of  all  the  other  regi- 
ments, and  the  nurses  used  to  come  up  from 
the  hospital  to  take  photographs  of  them,  and 
so — we  kept  them. 

I  omitted  to  mention  the  fact  that  the 
camels   brought   a   native   with  them. 

Nominally,  no  doubt,  he  was  in  charge  of 


LUDERITZBUCHT  19 

them,  but  I  do  not  think  that  he  ever  let 
the  camels  know  it.  He  came  to  us  as  well, 
and  he  told  us  their  names  and  a  lot  of 
other  interesting  facts.  He  said,  for  instance, 
that  if  you  ejaculated  "  Hut  !  "  and  kicked 
them  at  the  same  time,  they  might  go — 
"  might,"  in  this  instance,  was  right  I — and 
that  if  you  said  *'  'riwa  !  "  with  the  same 
accompaniments  they  would  get  up. 

They  did,  with  a  disconcerting  suddenness 
that  generally  caught  you  as  you  were  half 
way  into  the  saddle.  A  word  that  sounded 
something  like  "  Twitts,"  he  further  in- 
formed us,  was  the  signal  for  them  to 
sit  down. 

One  of  our  corporals  who  was  looked  up 
to  as  an  authority  upon  camels,  because  in 
his  infancy  he  had  ridden  one  at  the  Zoo, 
was  placed  in  charge  of  them,  and  on  the 
morning  following  their  advent  he  and  the 
writer  and  one  of  our  lieutenants  took  them 
out — save  the  mark  !  they  took  us  for  a 
saunter  round  the  town.  We  had  a  good 
deal  of  fun  that  morning,  but  I  think  the 
camels  had  more.  Two  of  our  party,  I  know, 
enjoyed  themselves  hugely  when  **  Lands- 
man " — he  was  the  second  biggest  camel — 
tried  to  rub  the  corporal  off  his  back  against 


20  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

some  particularly  atrocious  German  archi- 
tecture. 

To  our  great  joy — the  camels  were  be- 
having themselves  for  the  moment — we  met 
the  whole  of  the  Brigade  Staff  out  for  an 
airing,  and,  as  might  be  expected  of  three 
camels  in  a  very  narrow  street,  attracted  their 
attention. 

For  what  happened  to  him  after  that  our 
lieutenant  himself  was  solely  responsible. 
He  was  explaining  to  the  most  gorgeous - 
looking  Staff  officer  exactly  how  one  dealt 
with  camels.  "  You  see,"  he  said,  "  when 
you  want  them  to  sit  down  you  simply  say 
'  Tootsie.' "  (This  was  quite  safe:  they 
were  already  sitting  down.)  "And  when 
you  want  them  to  get  up  you  just  lift  your 
leg — like    this — and    you    say    '  Riw '  " 

He  had  scarcely  got  the  quotation  mark 
out  of  his  mouth  when  the  vast  bulk  of 
the  camel  beneath  him  rose  with  the  awful 
suddenness  of  an  exploding  mine  and  smote 
him  violently  aloft.  How  he  managed  to 
retain  some  sort  of  a  hold  I  do  not  pretend 
to  know.  In  civilian  life  he  is  a  dentist, 
and   perhaps    that    partly   explains   it. 

Anyway,  the  rest  of  that  morning's  ride 
is   lost   in   the    memory  of  that   lieutenamt- 


LUDERITZBUCHT  21 

man  hanging  head  downwards — his  arms 
clasped  around  the  cameFs  forelegs,  and 
saying,    in   all   sorts   of  voices   of   agonized 

protest  and  cajolery  :   **  Tootsie  !     Oh,  d 

you  !      Tootsie  !  " 

It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  understand 
why  war  should  be  so  much  more  impres- 
sive to  the  spectator  at  a  distance  than  to 
the  man  engaged  in  it.  Perhaps  it  is  that 
the  sense  of  personal  detachment  shows 
things  in  a  clearer  perspective,  or  perhaps, 
again,  it  is  simply  that  the  terseness  of 
official  cablegrams  leaves  so  much  to  the 
imagination.  Myself,  I  incline  to  the  latter  ; 
but  this  I  know  :  that  the  bulletins — we  in 
German  South -West  were  never  exalted  to 
the  rank  of  the  communique — which  told 
the  world  of  "  the  occupation  of  Luderitz- 
bucht "  conveyed  a  vastly  more  dramatic 
aspect  of  that  feat  than  ever  entered  the 
philosophy  of  those  who  were  merely  respon- 
sible for  it. 

For  us,  indeed,  those  first  few  days  in 
Luderitzbucht  held  more  of  humour  than 
anything  else.  Our  horses  did  not  come 
ashore  until  September  21st — three  days 
after  our  own  landing — and,  deprived  thus 
of  our  sole   justification,   we  loafed  around 


22  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

the  town  or  indulged  in  foraging  expeditions 
as  the  fancy  took  us.  With  the  infantry, 
of  course,  it  was  far  otherwise,  and  we  were 
constantly  being  reminded  of  the  war  by 
the  sight  of  them  scuffling  away  at  their 
trenches  and  blockhouses. 

One  of  the  features  of  Luderitzbucht  was 
the  number  of  its  gramophones.  Every 
house  had  one.  I  use  the  word  **  had  "  ad- 
visedly, because  there  followed  a  period — 
happily  brief — when  nearly  every  one  of  us 
included  a  gramophone  in  his  personal  lug- 
gage. We  did  not — indeed,  we  did  not — 
loot  them.  We  only  borrowed  them. 
Which,  it  may  be  said,  is  a  difference  with 
at  least  an  air  of  distinction  ! 

A  squadron  of  gramophones,  all  playing 
at  the  same  time,  and  all,  of  course,  play- 
ing different  airs — from  eternal  Wagner  to 
the  German  equivalent  for  Harry  Lauder — 
is  a  fearsome  thing,  and  it  is  not,  perhaps, 
to  be  wondered  at  that  they  quickly  palled. 
The  first  note  of  their  decline  in  popularity 
was  struck,  I  think,  when  one  night  a  voice 
was  heard  entreating  any  one — he  did  not 
care  who — to  swap  him  "a  tin  of  milk  for 
a  gramophone,  records  and  all !  " 

It  was  at  about  this  time,  too,  that  a  brain 


LUDERITZBUCHT  23 

wave  on  the  part  of  some  Staff  officer 
took  the  tangible  form  of  what  were  known 
by  the  courtesy  title  of  "  surprise  alarms," 
and  the  manner  of  them  was  thus :  A 
message  would  be  sent  from  Brigade  Head- 
quarters to  officers  commanding  units  to  the 
effect  that  an  alarm  would  be  sounded  that 
night.  "  The  hour  for  the  alarm/'  the 
message  would  add,  "  is  left  to  the  discretion 
of  officers  commanding."  The  utmost 
secrecy,  too,  was  to  be  observed,  as  it  was 
essential  that  the  men  should  be  taken  com- 
pletely by  surprise. 

The  officer  commanding  unit  would  then, 
in  the  strictest  confidence,  of  course,  tell 
each  one  of  his  troop  officers,  and  they, 
again  in  the  strictest  confidence,  would  in- 
form their  troop  sergeants  ;  from  the  troop 
sergeants  it  would  filter  through  to  the 
corporals,  and  the  corporals  would  hand  it 
on  to  the  troops  themselves.  There,  at  least, 
the  confidence  was  justified.  The  secret 
could  go  no  farther. 

Thus,  when  a  "  surp^rise  alarm  "  did  occur, 
its  chief  feature,  in  so  far  as  we  were  con- 
cerned, lay  in  the  well -simulated  astonish- 
ment of  our  O.C.  at  the  extraordinary 
rapidity   with    which    his    men   had    turned 


24  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

out.  Upon  one  occasion,  however,  he  did 
most  unfeignedly  break  down.  An  alarm 
had  sounded.  We  were  in  our  places,  and 
'*  the  old  man  "  was  about  to  address  us  in 
a  few  well -chosen  words,  when,  to  the  sur- 
prise of  nearly  everybody,  the  throaty 
strains  of  "  Deutschland  Ueber  Alles  *'  fell 
upon  our  astounded  ears.  The  culprit,  it 
was  discovered,  was  a  man  in  No.  i  troop, 
and  his  subsequent  explanation  to  the 
effect  that  the  gramophone  was  a  cheap 
German  patent  that  went  off  like  an  alarm 
clock  was,  I  am  glad  to  say,  received  with 
some  considerable  coldness. 

Nearly  every  one  must  be  familiar  with 
the  fable  of  '^sop  that  tells  of  the  untimely 
death  of  a  herd-boy  who  played  at  alarms, 
of  how  his  comrades  wearied  in  time  of  the 
game,  and  of  how  one  day,  when  cause  for 
real  alarm  came,  they  took  no  notice  of  his 
cries  for  help,  and  he  perished,  and  every- 
body turned  round  to  everybody  else  and 
said,  "  I  told  you  so  !  " 

History,  with  us,  very,  very  nearly  re- 
peated itself.  Not,  of  course,  that  we 
should  necessarily  have  perished.  On  the 
contrary,  we  should,  in  all  probability,  have 
gained  an   imperishable   fame. 


LUDERITZBUCHT  25 

There  had  been  a  succession  of  these  sur- 
prises, and  when  one  night  we  were 
aroused  without  having  been  warned  before- 
hand we  were  mightily  disgruntled  thereat, 
and  by  way  of  expressing  our  disgust^ 
turned  out  as  we  had  slept — the  plutocrats 
and  the  more  successful  looters  in  pyjamas^ 
and  the  others  in  absurdly  inadequate  shirts. 
Over  these  we  had,  of  course,  slipped  our 
greatcoats  and  bandoliers,  so  that,  in  the 
darkness,  we  looked  quite  presentably  war- 
like. Then,  to  our  collective  horror,  we 
learned  that  this  was  no  surprise  alarm, 
that  something  had  happened^  or  was  going 
to  happen,  and  for  some  quarter  of  an  hour 
we  stood  in  our  blushing  deshabille,  and 
prayed  fervently  that  there  would  be  no  order 
to  saddle  up.  There  was  no  order,  and  we 
went  back  to  our  blankets,  chastened  and 
deeply   thankful. 

No  power  of  imagination  can  conjure  up 
any  approach  to  the  mental  picture  of  the 
squadron  of  us  flaunting  our  indecency  over 
the  mocking  sand-dunes  for  a  day  or  more 
— as  we  might  so  easily  have  had  to  do. 
Even  the  enemy's  camel  corps  would  have 
blushed  the  blush  of  outraged  "  kultur  "  I 

Our  horses  were  landed  on  the  afternoon 


26  -WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

of  the  2 1  St.  Poor  beasts  I  Draggle-tailed, 
cut,  and  kicked  about,  they  looked  like 
ghosts  of  the  animals  that  we  had  shipped 
at  Cape  Town  only  ten  days  before.  If 
we  had  suffered  to  some  extent  on  that 
,memorable  trip,  what  had  they,  packed 
like  sardines  in  the  noisome  hold  of  a 
dilapidated  sea -tramp  1  By  the  evening, 
however,  hard  grooming  and  ointment  had 
worked  wonders,  and  when,  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  we  led  them  down  to  the  sea  for 
exercise,  they  bore  but  little  resemblance  to 
the  spectres  of  the  day  before.  On  the  next 
day  again  they  had  picked  up  so  wonderfully 
that  we  saddled  up  and  exercised  them. 
Gentle  work  at  first ;  but  on  the  24th,  when, 
for  the  first  time,  we  mounted  in  **  marching 
order,"  they  looked  fit  for  any  amount  of 
hard  work.  They  got  it — sooner  than  was 
expected  ! 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   REAL  THING 

Qn  the  afternoon  of  the  25  th  the  order  came 
that  we  were  to  fall  in  at  eight  o'clock  that 
night  in  heavy  marching  order,  and  with 
one  day's  rations  each  for  horse  and  man. 
What  did  it  mean  ?  Was  it  the  real  thing  at 
last?  Questions  elicited  nothing.  Our 
officers  merely  replied  that  they  did  not 
know — there  was  an  order  from  Head- 
quarters, and  that  was  all. 

So  we  waited,  and  an  hour  before  the  time 
saw  us  ready  to  the  last  little  detail  of  filled 
water-bottles  and  rolled  greatcoats.  Eight 
o'clock  came,  and  we  fell  in  with  our  led 
horses  and  waited  again. 

**  Sixty  extra  rounds  of  ammunition  to  each 
man  I  "  The  order  came  from  somewhere 
out  of  the  darkness,  and  one  could  feel  the 
stir  of  relieved  tension  as  its  import  went 
home   to  the   waiting   ranks.      This  was  no 

foolery  of  surprise  alarm  I     We  were  going 

27 


28  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

somewhere  to  do  something,  and  the  con- 
fused murmur  broke  into  open  jubilation. 
"  Stop  that  talking  !  "  A  silence,  then  the 
same  even -toned  voice  went  on  :  "  There  is 
to  be  no  talking — whatsoever  !  There  is  to 
be  no  smoking  ;  any  man  caught  striking 
a  match  will  be  dealt  with  —  promptly!" 
Silence  again,  broken  by  the  uneasy  creaking 
of  leather  and  the  restlessness  of  horses. 
Some  one  was  counting  in  a  low  voice : 
'*  Three,  four  " — I  could  just  catch  the  words 
— '*  five,  six.  That's  your  lot  !  "  and  there 
followed  the  whispered  acknowledgment  of 
the  man  on  my  left  as  he  slipped  the  packets 
of  extra  rounds  into  his  wallets.  My  turn 
next,  and  then  the  turn  of  the  man  on  my 
right,  and  so  on,   down  the  line. 

"  Charge  your  magazines  with  five  rounds 
apiece."  It  was  our  troop  officer  who  was 
speaking.  A  pause,  then:  "Ready?  .  .  . 
Prepare  to  mount.  Mount  I  "  Followed  a 
confused  jumble  as  the  lines  of  troops  broke 
and  surged  and  swayed  and  surged  back 
again.  Horses  do  not  like  night  work,  and 
are  sometimes  emphatic  in  expressing  them- 
selves. 

Some  one  was  in  difficulties  just  in  front 
of  me.     There  was  a  sound  of  furious  buck- 


THE    REAL   THING  29 

ing,  followed  by  a  smothered  oath  and  a 
thud  as  the  rider  landed  squarely  on  his 
back.  Some  one  else — I  do  not  know  who 
he  was  beyond  the  fact  that  he  stood  on 
the  ground  and  was  shaking  me  by  the  hand 
— said:  "Good-bye,  old  man.  Good  luck  ! '* 
and — **  By  sections  from  the  right.  .  .  . 
Walk  march  !  "  and  he  had  dodged  out  of 
the  way  of  the  wheeling  sections  and  was 
gone. 

With  No.  I  Troop  in  the  advance — they 
were  to  pay,  and  dearly,  for  that  pride  of 
place  before  we  returned  ! — we  filed  off, 
troop  by  troop  and  section  by  section,  into 
the  waiting  darkness. 

It  may  in  all  truth  be  a  small  thing,  this 
starting  on  a  night  patrol,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  to  most  of  us  it  was  the 
first  taste  of  anything  of  the  nature.  None 
of  us  had  any  conception  of  where  we  were 
going,  or  why.  The  country  was  utterly 
unknown  to  us — we  hoped  vaguely  that  some 
one  with  us  knew  something.  It  was  dark. 
There  were  presumably  some  German  gentle- 
men waiting  somewhere  to  receive  us.  We 
were  half  choked  by  a  fine  white  dust  that 
hung  about  our  path,  and  it  was — oh  !  the 
greatest  fun. 


30  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

Past  the  jail  we  rode,  past  the  cemetery 
with  its  white  mist  of  headstones,  past  the 
R.L.I,  pickets,  who  turned  out  in  amazement 
at  the  dust -curtained  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
horses  and  men  ;  past  the  flanks  of  great 
granite  hills,  and  so  into  the  open,  where 
the  ghostly,  half-light — it  is  never  really 
dark  in  the  sand -belts  of  G.S.W. — rioted 
with  the  imagination  and  made  of  sand- 
dunes  mountains,  and  of  mountains  clouds 
that  changed  while  you  watched  them  into 
belts  of  trees  where  no  trees  could  be,  or 
disappeared  altogether  if  you  turned  from 
them  for  a  moment,  and  all  the  time  the 
sound  of  our  progress  went  up  like  the  sound 
of  a  sea.  Always  it  was  with  us,  that 
muffled  beat  of  hoofs,  that  was  like  the  quiet 
lisp  of  summer  seas  as  we  ploughed  through 
the  sand,  and  the  thunder  of  heavy  surf  as 
the  squadron  took  the  bare  granite. 

Hour  after  hour  we  rode.  No  one  knew 
the  time,  or  greatly  cared.  A  blanket  of 
sea-mist  came  after,  and  wrapped  us  in  its 
wet  folds,  whilst,  ahead,  a  dull  red  glow 
in  the  heart  of  the  darkness  set  us  guessing 
at  our  objective.  We  had  seen  that  same 
glow  from  Luderitzbucht  on  the  previous 
evening,  and  had  been  told  that  the  Germans 


THE    REAL   THING  31 

were  burning  railway  construction  works  at 
Kolmanskuppe .  "  A  night  attack  !  "  The 
thought  tingled,  and  we  rdde  on,  keenly 
expectant,  and  as  keenly  conscious,  now,  that 
we  were  making  a  good  deal  of  noise,  and 
of  what  that  might  mean  to  us. 

With  the  hours  died  that  half-formed 
hope.  We  were  too  wet  and  sleepy  and  cold 
to  care  much  what  happened,  and  when, 
somewhere  towards  the  dawn,  the  order  came 
to  dismount  and  ring  our  horses,  we  obeyed 
almost  automatically.  ("  Ringing  "  horses 
consists  in  tying  them,  head  to  head,  in  a 
circle.  In  the  ring  thus  formed  the  guard 
has  every  horse's  head  within  easy  reach 
of  his  hand,  and  one  man  may  thus  easily^ 
manage  twenty  or  even  thirty  horses.) 

This  was  done  as  well  as  our  numbed 
fingers  permitted,  and  we  lay  down  to  the 
most  cheerless  vigil  I  ever  remember.  The 
sea -mist  had  gone,  and  its  place  was  filled 
by  a  wind  that  sobbed  over  the  dunes  ,and 
scourged  us  with  whiplash  sand,  and  we  lay 
and  burrowed  under  each  other  for  warmth, 
and  swore  for  the  sake  of  the  further  warmth 
that  we  might  get  out  of  the  swearing. 

"  Saddle  iup !  "  Never  was  order  so 
welcome,   and  we   sat  up  to  stare  through 


32  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

sand -rimmed  eyes  at  a  dawii,  steel -grey  and 
pitilessly  cold,  but  dawn  for  all  that,  and  by 
the  time  that  we  had  worked  the  stiffness  and 
numbness  out  of  ourselves  sufficiently  to  be 
able  to  tighten  the  girths  of  our  horses 
(one  does  not  "  off -saddle  "  when  the  enemy 
are  presumed  to  be  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  one's  bivouac),  red  day,  like  a 
bloodshot  eye,  was  staring  over  a  horizon 
of  lilac -tinted  sand-dunes,  and  we  mounted 
and  rode  away  into  a  riot  of  colour  that  grew 
more  madly  drunken  with  the  light. 

It  is  perhaps  in  some  subconscious  feeling 
that  one  is  within  reasonable  distance  of 
suddenly  and  violently  attaining  the  ultimate 
end  of  things  that  there  lies  this  fuller  and 
keener  appreciation  of  beauty  than  one 
knows  at  other  times.  Whatever  the  reason, 
however,  it  is  there.  I  have  felt  it,  and — I 
have  watched  others . 

Sunrise  found  us  in  a  world  of  amazing 
sand-dunes,  and  the  silence  and  wonder  of 
the  place  gripped  us  and  held  us.  We 
watched  great  chunks  of  yellow  and  red  sun- 
light flung  from  dune  to^  dune,  caught  and 
held  an  instant  on  some  bluff  crest ;  then  it 
was  gone,  and  the  sand  that  it  had  touched 
put  on  morning  robes  of  violet  and  mauve, 


THE    REAL   THING  33 

and  dunes  farther  on  caught  up  the  sun's 
vagrant  glory  and  held  it  aloft  and  mocked 
aloud,  and  became  grey  and  dead  in  their 
turn.  Sheer  witchcraft  !  Permission  to 
smoke  was  given,  and  the  magic  of  the  place 
took  the  blue  film  that  rose  from  the 
squadron  and  twisted  that  into  beauty. 
Farther  distances  uplifted  themselves  to 
colour -drunken  senses  ;  fields  of  alabaster, 
rose -suffused  and  laced  with  faintest  blue 
vein -work.      Hills    beyond,    quivering    with 

unnameable   colour    and Hullo  !       What 

was  this  ? 

The  squadron  had  halted  and  we  could  see 
men  of  the  leading  troops  dismounting  and 
creeping  up  the  flank  of  a  sand-dune.  How 
slowly  they  moved.     Bang! 

The  shot  seemed  to  come  from  nowhere 
in  particular,  and  nothing  much  seemed  to 
happen,  save  perhaps  that  my  horse  jumped 
even  more  violently  than  did  its  rider.  Who 
had  fired  ?  And  why  ?  I  looked  round  at 
the  man  on  my  right  for  an  answer,  and 
found  that  he  was  looking  at  me. 

Bang!  This  time  it  was  undoubtedly  one 
of  our  own  men  firing,  for  I  distinctly  saw 
the  "kick-up"  of  his  rifle.  But  at  what? 
Bang!     Bang!      Bang!     They   were   at   it 

3 


34  WITH    BOTHA  S   ARMY 

merrily,  enough  now.  Two  troops,  at  least, 
down  to  it  on  the  top  of  the  sand-hill.  A 
man,  some  twenty  yards  to  my  left  front, 
shouted  something  about  getting  under  cover, 
and  the  top  of  a  baby  sand-dune,  about  mid- 
way between  us,  was  smitten  into  fine  dust 
by  a  something  that  whined  as  it  went  on, 
and  we  "  got  " — hurriedly  ! 

Another  ricochet  cried  overhead  as  we 
reached  the  cover  of  the  sand-hill.  One 
troop  only  was  standing  to  its  horses.  The 
others  were  clustered  thickly  along  the 
ridge.  It  was  our  troop  that  was  "  standing 
to,"  but  no  one  seemed  to  be  taking  any 
particular  notice  of  us,  so  we  surreptiously 
handed  over  our  horses  and  crawled  up  into 
the  firing  line . 

Some  four  hundred  yards  away  was  a 
conglomeration  of  tin  sheds  and  a  small 
brick-built  house.  **  What's  up?"  I  asked 
of  a  man  who  was  recharging  his  magazine. 
"  Don't  know,"  he  replied  laconically.  "  Pm 
chipping  brickwork  !  Hullo  !  One  of  our 
chaps  has  got  it !  "  A  man  in  No.  i  Troop 
had  slid  a  few  feet  down  the  slope  and 
was  holding  his  wrist.  The  blood  was  just 
beginning  to  trickle  through  between  his 
fingers.     A  cigarette,  I  noticed,  was  still  in 


THE    REAL   THING  35 

his  mouth.  "  Only  a  scratch  !  "  observed  the 
laconic  one.  "  But  I  wonder  where  they're 
firing  from.  They're  not  in  the  house,  I 
swear  !  " 

*'  There  they  go  !  "  The  shout  was  raised 
by  some  one  at  the  far  end  of  the  line,  and 
away  down  the  valley,  beyond  the  buildings, 
there  appeared  four  figures  on  horseback, 
galloping  all  they  knew.  "  Nine  hundred 
yards  !  "  snapped  the  man  next  to  me  as 
he  readjusted  his  sights.  Every  one  was 
firing  now,  and  the  sand  was  kicking  up 
in  little  spurts  all  round  the  flying  figures. 

At  fifteen  hundred  yards  we  gave  it  up, 
and  a  bend  in  the  valley  took  the  four  from 
our  sight. 

Suddenly  there  appeared  in  the  wake  of 
the  Germans  a  crowd  of  running  figures, 
and  the  firing,  which  had  died  down,  broke 
out  anew.  "  Don't  shoot  !  "  some  one 
shouted.  "  They're  niggers  !  "  and  we  held 
and  waited.  They  were  niggers,  as  we  found 
when,  half  an  hour  later.  No.  4  Troop  had 
rounded  them  up — and  pretty  badly  scared 
niggers  at  that.  They  seemed,  however, 
after  the  manner  of  the  African  native,  to 
be  in  nowise  astonished  at  our  not  shooting 
them  out  of  hand  ;  though  we  learned  sub- 


36  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

sequently  that  they  had  most  emphatically 
expected  to  be  destroyed — the  Germans  had 
told  them  so. 

It  was  easy,  when  we  reached  the 
buildings,  to  learn  how  the  Germans  had 
eluded  us  with  such  perfect  ease.  Behind 
the  tin  sheds — one  of  them  bore  in  large 
black  letters  the  information  that  this  was 
"Fort  Grasplatz  "  —  the  ground  sloped 
steeply  to  the  valley  below,  and  the  sand 
showed  us  where  their  horses  had  been 
held  for  them  until  they  had  considered  it 
was  time  to  go. 

It  was  all  rather  humiliating.  If  we 
had  done  this,  or  had  not  done  that — 
we  grew  rather  heated  over  the  discussion 
— we  should  have  got  them.  Very  an- 
noying !  but  we  found  some  considerable 
measure  of  consolation  in  a  breakfast  of 
looted  coffee,  fancy  biscuits,  and  Limburger 
cheese.  There  were  some  excellent  cigars, 
too,  in  one  of  the  sheds,  and  when,  even- 
tually we  mounted  and  rode  away  along  the 
line  (Grasplatz,  in  times  of  peace,  was  a 
railway-station),  We  felt  quite  large-minded 
on  the  subject. 

Our  officers,  too,  must  have  felt  the 
humanizing  influence,   for  we  learned  from 


THE    REAL   THING  i^j 

them,  in  snatches  here  and  there,  some  of 
"  the  reasons  why  "  of  our  expedition,  and 
out  of  these  snatches  we  pieced  together  a 
fairly  consecutive  whole.  Our  main  objec- 
tive, that  of  bagging  the  Germans  at  Gras- 
platz,  had  failed — we  learned  that.  What 
actually  we  had  accomplished  was  a  big 
loop  around  Kolmanskuppe,  and  we  were 
now  returning  to  that  place  to  meet  the 
R.L.I.,  who  had  left  Luderitzbucht  some 
hours  after  us  on  the  previous  evening. 
We  might  see  some  fun  on  the  way  back, 
but  it  was  very  unlikely.     That  was  all. 

The  railway  line  which  we  were  following 
lies  along  the  back  of  an  immense  outcrop 
of  granite.  To  our  left,  at  some  miles 
distance,  was  the  sea ;  to  our  right,  the 
desert . 

It  was  worth  watching,  that  desert. 
Ghostly  mirage  stalked  there,  and  little 
yellow  sandstorms  got  up  and  scurried 
around  among  the  dunes,  and  tried  to  hide 
the  feet  of  the  big  purple  hills  of  the  distance. 
The  sun  was  pleasantly  warm  on  the  high 
ground  where  we  rode ;  we  had  had  the 
nicest,  politest  little  brush  with  the  enemy, — 
no  one  had  been  really  hurt  on  either  side 
— and  now  we  were  going  home. 


38  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

No  I  Troop,  still  in  the  advance,  was 
covering  the  ground  to  our  right  front  in 
extended  formation.  How  queer  theyi 
looked— men  and  horses  seeming  at  that 
distance  not  much  bigger  than  ants  ! 

What  the  deuce  were  they  up  to,  anyway  ? 
Some  of  them  on  the  extreme  right  of  the 
line  had  turned  in  and  were  galloping  furi- 
ously.    Idiots  !    working  tired  horses  in  that 

way  !     They  ought  to  be Bang!     Good 

Lord  !  ^gain  ?  Bang  !  Bang !  How  strangely 
the  shots  sounded,  muffled  and  unreal. 

But  they  were  real .     Look  ! 

One  of  the  galloping  horses  had  collapsed 
suddenly,  and  lay  kicking.  Its  rider  picked 
himself  up,  ran  forward  a  few  paces,  and 
flung  down  again .  The  troops  on  the  railway 
line  halted  automatically. 

A  whistle  blew  and  No.  3,  just  ahead  of 
us,  trotted  off  in  a  cloud  of  sand.  No.  2 
picked  up  a  signal  from  somewhere,  and 
moved  off  the  line  to  the  left.  Still  we 
waited,  torn  with  impatience.  Ah  !  A 
mounted  figure  rode  out  of  the  press  of 
horsemen  ahead.  Followed  the  sound  of  a 
whistle,  faintly  heard,  and  our  turn,  had  come . 

What  a  breathless  scurry  that  was  to  where 
the  *'  old  man  "   was   superintending  affairs 


THE    REAL   THING  39 

with  his  very  best  parade  manner.  I  can 
see  him  now,  one  hand  thrust  deep  into  a 
breeches  pocket,  a  pipe  clamped  firmly  in 
the  angle  of  his  jaw,  and  that  damned  enig- 
matical smile  of  his,  half  hid  by  the  drooping 
moustache.  I  know,  should  he  chance  to 
read  these  lines,  that  he  will  forgive  the 
adjective.  Many  phrases  that  are  not  in- 
cluded in  the  vocabulary  of  nice,  polite 
people  are  sometimes  used  by  common 
soldiers  as  terms  of  endearment,  and  anyway, 
his  smile  was  —  enigmatical .  When  he 
praised — pccasions  so  rare  as  to  be  almost 
negligible — it  was  there.  And  it  was  there 
when  he  blamed,  which,  not  unnaturally 
perhaps,  he  often  did.  When,  as  at  the 
present,  the  squadron  was  under  fire,  the 
smile  grew  almost  animated. 

"  Number  four  !  "—the  old  man  used  to 
drawl  his  words  of  command  as  though  he 
liked  the  sound  of  them—*'  Number  four, 
action  ri-ight  !  "  We  were  down  and  were 
handing  our  reins  to  the  horse -leaders  before 
he  had  got  rid  of  the  order.  "  This  way, 
men  !  "  Our  troop  officer  was  scrambling 
down  the  slope  in  the  direction  of  the 
firing,  and  we  plunged  after,  charging  our 
magazines  as  we  ran. 


40  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

"  There  they  are  !  "  Two  horsemen  were 
galloping  obliquely,  across  our  front  at  about 
eight  hundred  yards  range.  They  were 
unmistakably  Germans^  and  we  flung  our- 
selves down  and  opened  fire.  At  the  third 
shot,  fired  I  think  by  a  sergeant  who  was 
sitting  down  to  it  a  few  yards  to  my  right, 
one  of  the  figures  collapsed  forward  on  to 
his  horse's  neck,  but  recovered  and  hung 
on  somehow,  and  at  about  eleven  hundred 
yards  they  disappeared  behind  the  shoulder 
of  a  sand-hill. 

The  sound  of  an  occasional  shot  still  came 
up  to  us  from  the  sand  below,  but  the 
"  fun  "  must  be  nearly  finished,  for  No.  3 
Troop,  on  the  rocks  above  and  behind  us, 
had  ceased  fire.  They  knew,  could  see, 
what  was  going  on,  whilst  we,  who  were 
within  a  hundred  yards  of  what  must  have 
been,  to  judge  by  the  number  of  shots  we 
had  heard,  quite  a  brisk  little  scrap,  could 
see  absolutely  nothing.  We  scrambled  on, 
hoping  desperately  that  everything  was  not 
yet  over. 

We  were  on  the  fringe  of  the  sand  now, 
and  were  beginning  to  see  things.  A  man 
— I  recognized  him  as  belonging  to  No.  i  — 
was    there,    walking    aimlessly    about.      He 


THE    REAL   THING  41 

was  hatless,  he  had  no  rifle,  and  he  limped 
as  he  moved.  A  few  yards  beyond  him  was 
his  horse,  and  from  where  it  lay  a  yard -wide 
spoor  of  blood  ran  down  to  the  sand-hills, 
a  full  hundred  yards  away.  "  Mind  the  chap 
in  the  sand  !  "  It  was  the  hatless  one  who 
was  shouting.  "  Oh,  mind  the  chap  in  the 
sand  !  "  There  were  several  men  "  in  the 
sand."  As  far  as  I  could  see  they  looked 
perfectly  harmless . 

One  of  them  was  lying  flat  on  his  back, 
with  his  legs  and  arms  grotesquely  out- 
flung,  and  as  I  looked  there  occurred  a 
phenomenon.  From  behind  him  there  up- 
rose a  third  hand  and  arm  that  waved 
frantically  for  some  moments  and  then 
stopped  and  seemed  to  wait.  Nothing 
happened,  and  the  rest  of  the  man  that 
belonged  to  the  spare  hand  and  arm  rose 
to  his  feet  and  stood  with  both  arms  up- 
held above  his  head — our  first  prisoner. 
Ah,  well  !  The  "  fun  "  was  over  now,  and 
we   could   turn   and    reckon   up   the   cost. 

At  the  edge  of  the  granite  lay  a  man — 
one  of  our  men — shot  through  the  heart. 
Another  man  was  kneeling  over  him,  his 
head  down  to  the  other's  breast  as  if  listening 
for  sound  of  life.      With  one  hand  he  had 


42  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

commenced  to  loosen  the  other's  collar ;  in 
the  other  he  held,  loosely,  the  strap  of  a 
water-bottle.  They  were  brothers,  these  two 
men,  and — they  were  both  dead.  Another 
— mortally  and  hideously  hurt — was  holding 
his  wound  with  both  hands.  He  was  calling 
out  too,  I  remember.  A  fourth  was  being 
carried  up  towards  the  railway  line.  His 
leg  was  shattered  at  a  few  inches  above  the 
knee,  and  as  he  passed  he  made  some  joking 
allusion  to  his  "  rotten  luck  " — he  was  the 
man  wounded  earlier  in  the  morning  at 
Grasplatz.  Twenty  minutes  later  they  came 
down  and  told  us  that  he,  too,  was  dead. 

One  of  the  few  kind  things  of  war  is  the 
little  time  given  to  one  to  think.  There 
are,  of  course,  memories  that  one  carries 
away — memories  of  men  writhing  in  agony  ; 
of  men  whom  one  had  known  and  liked 
making  bestial  noises  while  they  died  ;  of 
horses  shattered  and  maimed,  and  looking 
pitifully  bewildered  in  their  pain.  But  the 
pictures  are  mercifully  vague,  blurred.  The 
brain,  at  such  times,  is  too  drunken  with 
excitement  to  do  more  than  record  the  bare 
facts . 

And  of  the  remainder  of  that  day,  my 
memory  can  tell  me  no  more  than  that,  at 


THE    REAL   THING  43 

some  hour  after  dark,  we  got  back  to 
Luderitzbucht,  that  it  rained  for  some 
time  ( a  fact  unforgettable  of  G .  S . W . )  ; 
that  some  of  the  R.L.I,  came  up  from 
somewhere  .and  helped  us  to  bury  the 
Germans  ;  and — that  is  about  all.  But  stay  ! 
There  is  one  other  picture  that  is  clear- 
that  of  a  dark-moustached,  debonair  man 
lying  propped  up  against  a  rock ;  blood 
mostly  as  to  the  breeches  of  him  (he  was 
shot  through  the  thigh),  and  utter  uncon- 
cemedness  as  to  all  the  rest  of  him,  from 
his  cheery  smile  to  the  cigarette  that  he  airily 
waved  to  illustrate  some  point  or  other  to 
the  man  who  was  bandaging  him.  This  was 
Captain  De  Meillon,  Chief  of  the  Intelli- 
gence. His  grave  is  somewhere  out  there 
in  the  djesert  (he  was  shot  dead  some  months 
later  near  the  Aus  Nek),  and  our  easy  task 
it  is  to  keep  his  memory  green  ;  easy  because 
— ^well !  he  was  a  fine  soldier,  but  a  finer 
friend . 


CHAPTER    III 

SANDSTORMS   AND   CEREMONIES 

The  burial-ground  at  Luderitzbucht  affords 
striking  testimony  of  Teutonic  thoroughness. 
An  area  of  some  three  hundred  square  yards 
in  extent,  it  contains  within  its  neat 
boundaries  both  cemetery  and  town  rubbish - 
heap. 

True,  the  cinder  and  empty  tin  half  is 
quite  distinctly  marked  off  from  the  head- 
stone half — the  "  God's  Acre  "  of  a  grim 
Lutheran  humour — but,  and  it  was  not  alone 
the  suggested  "  ptomanic  "  connection  be- 
tween the  two  **  departments  "  that  influenced 
us,  we  objected,  strongly,  and  perhaps  not 
unnaturally,  when,  on  the  day  after  the  fight 
at  Grasplatz,  we  were  told  to  carry  our  dead 
there. 

It  is  not  an  aggressively  cheerful  place. 
One  can  picture  the  spirit  of  the  Father- 
land doing  the  goose-step  over  it,  spurred 
heel  gritting  alternately  in  mounds  of  refuse 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     45 

and  on  tombstone,  saying  :  '*  Here — here  we 
dump  our   waste   material  !  " 

"  Better,"  we  argued,  "  to  let  our  men  lie 
where  they  have  fallen  !  "  but  convention, 
and  a  desire  on  the  part  of  some  command- 
ing officer  or  other  to  ease  himself  of  a  neat 
tribute  to  our  "  gallantry,"  prevailed,  and 
our  first  casualties  lie  now  in  mixed  com- 
pany. 

We  buried  them  on  the  afternoon  of 
September  27th,  and  the  whole  of  the  Central 
Force  came  down  to  see  us  do  it.  We 
formed  a  hollow  square  around  the  graves. 
To  the  left  of  us  were  the  R.L.I.,  and  from 
somewhere  in  the  murk  of  sandstorm  in  front 
of  us  the  pipes  of  the  Transvaal  Scottish 
wailed  dirgefully.  "  A  sandstorm  with  a 
stomach-ache,"  some  one  called  it,  but  we 
were  grateful,  all  the  same,  for  their  help. 
To  an  outsider  the  scene  would  doubtless 
have  been  impressive  to  a  degree.  The 
sandstorm,  the  silent  mass  of  khaki-clad 
troops  surrounding  the  white -surpliced  figure 
that  droned  of  ashes  and  dust  and  was  in- 
audible because  ashes  and  dust  choked  the 
air  into  which  he  spoke,  and  because  his 
surplice  stood  out  behind  him  and  cracked 
loudly   in   the   grip    of  the   buffeting   wind ; 


46  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

the  black,  cumbersome  German  coffins,  the 
Lutheran  pastor  who  stood  quietly  behind 
awaiting  his  turn  to  bury  the  German  dead 
— we  gave  them  a  military  funeral,  too — 
and  the   sobbing  of  the  bagpipes. 

Yes,  it  must  have  been  impressive,  but 
to  us,  who  were  so  near  to  things,  it  all 
seemed  vaguely  unreal.  They  had  died  too 
quickly,    these    men,    for    us    to    altogether 

realize  their  going.     C 's  name  had  been 

called  out  on  roll-call  that  afternoon  to  attend 

the   funeral    parade,    and    C was   there 

—in  that  long  black  box  with  the  brass 
plates  and  flowered  handles.  It  was  all  very 
uncomfortable  and  disillusioning,  and  we 
were  more  than  glad  when  the  last  spadeful 
of  earth  had  been  beaten  flat  and  the  Scottish 
pipes  awoke  and  lilted  us  back  to  camp  on 
the  heels  of   "  Bonnie   Dundee." 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  28th  we  were 
ordered  to  hold  ourselves  in  readiness  for 
another  night  march  to  somewhere  unknown, 
and  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  found  us  again 
in  the  saddle.  We  knew  more  what  to  expect 
on  this  occasion.  Rumour  sprang  up  and 
told  us  that  we  were  going  to  have  another 
try  to  bag  the  "  garrison  "  of  Fort  Grasplatz, 
and  we  were  well  content  that  it  should  be 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES    47 

so.  We  were  indebted  to  the  enemy  for 
some  few  vacancies  in  our  mess,  and,  only 
reasonably,  we  were  anxious  to  settle  the 
little  score. 

One  night  ride  is  very  like  another.  There 
were  the  same  low -voiced  orders,  the  same 
doling  out  of  extra  rounds  of  ammunition^ 
the  darkness  was  all -pregnant  with  just  the 
same  vague  possibilities. 

There  was  one  difference,  however.  No. 
I  Troop,  somewhat  to  their  disgust  be  it 
said,  were  second  in  the  order  of  formation. 
They  had  been  in  the  advance  on  the  previous 
occasion  and  had  suffered,  in  consequence. 
It  was  only  fair,  therefore,  that  some  other 
troop  should  be  given  the  lead.  No.  2  took 
it,  and  the  possibilities,  and  we  moved  off  into 
the  night. 

We  did  not  take  the  route  that  we  had 
followed  on  the  night  of  the  25th.  Instead, 
we  struck  into  the  hills,  where  the  squadron 
clattered  over  outcrops  of  bare  granite  where 
horses  stumbled  and  men  fell,  where,  at 
times,  we  wound  in  single  file  around 
boulder -strewn  ridges,  or  scrambled  breath- 
lessly down  slopes  of  rock  and  sand  that 
were  too  steeply  tilted  to  ride. 

Sometimes — but   this    was    when    we   had 


48  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

forsaken  the  noise  and  clatter  of  the 
granite  for  the  velvet  silence  of  the  sand- 
dunes — the  section  in  front  of  ours  would 
slither  away  down  some  unseen  slope,  and 
before  we  could  pull  up  to  consider  the 
position  we  would  avalanche  down  after 
them,  the  horses  sliding  on  their  haunches 
and  the  men  hanging  on  somehow  and 
anyhow,  or,  if  they  became  unseated, 
tobogganing  on  their  own.  Not  infre- 
quently, when  the  squadron  had  safely  nego- 
tiated one  of  these  slopes,  we  would  look 
back  to  discover  one  or  more  mounted 
figures  vainly  endeavouring  to  force  their 
reluctant  beasts  to  hazard  the  slide.  A  sec- 
tion in  rear  would  then  hand  over  their 
horses,  double  back  to  the  sand-dunes, 
scramble  up  somehow,  and  then  two  of  the 
men  would  link  hands  under  the  quarters 
of  the  animal  that  was  refusing  the  plunge, 
and,  at  the  instant  risk  of  being  kicked  to 
glory,  literally  hurl  the  astonished  beast 
forward  and  over  the  edge. 

A  low  moon  hung  in  the  sky,  and  the 
dunes  stood  up  in  a  soft  golden  radiande 
that  was  caught,  here  and  there,  in  a  gleam 
of  elusive  silver,  and,  here  and  there, 
smudged  with   inky   shade   where  the  flank 


SAiNDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     49 

of  some  great  sand-hill  sloped  steeply  from 
the  moon's  path.  Usually,  our  guides  led 
us  through  the  valleys  of  this  great  dune- 
field,  but  not  infrequently,  when  our  further 
progress  was  barred  by  some  impasse  of 
sand,  we  would  take  to  the  higher  ground, 
to  the  crests  of  the  dunes  themselves,  and 
our  path  would  lie  by  crumbling  lip  and 
over  hog -backed  mounds  where  the  white 
dust  rose  like  a  mist  around  us  and  the 
yielding  sand  gave  knee -deep  to  our  toiling 
horses. 

Heavy  work  this,  and  the  morrow  might 
see  us  in  desperate  need  of  fresh  horses. 
The  troops  ahead  of  us  dismounted  in 
response  to  some  unheard  command  and 
we  rolled  out  of  our  saddles,  glad  to  ease 
the  animals  and  to  stretch  our  legs,  cramped 
with  long  riding. 

For  how  many  miles  we  walked  that  night 
no  one  is  likely  to  know,  but  although  that 
experience  was  to  be  the  first  of  many,  and 
although  we  got  used  to  it  in  the  end,  not 
one  of  us  is  likely  to  forget  that  first  weary 
progress  through  the  dune  country.  To  say 
that  we  were  not  suitably  clad  for  marching 
is  to  put  it  mildly.  In  addition  to  riding 
breeches,  and  leggings,  and  spurs,  over  which 

4 


50  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

tired  men  are  apt  to  trip,  we  wore,  each  one 
of  us,  a  military  greatcoat,  two  fally  loaded 
bandoliers  (how  those  buckles  hurt  !),  a 
filled  water-bottle,  a  mess -tin  that  clanked 
mournfully  to  every  movement,  a  haversack 
crammed  with  bully  beef  and  ship's  biscuits, 
and  a  bayonet  that  usually  managed  to  get 
in  between  one's  legs  at  awkward  moments  ; 
in  addition  we  carried  in  one  hand  a  rifle 
that  grew  heavier  as  the  slow  miles  fell  be- 
hind, and  with  the  other  dragged  at  the  reins 
of  a  horse  that,  being  a  horse,  could  not  see 
the  sense  of  the  proceedings,  and  wanted, 
every  hundred  yards  or  so,  to  lie  down  and 
rest.  When  the  order  came  to  halt  and 
"  ring  "  our  horses  for  what  remained  of  the 
night,  we  were  too  far  gone  even  to  realize 
our  relief.  We  just  threw  ourselves  down 
in  heaps  and  slept  untidily. 

Exhaustion  and  the  bitter  cold  fought  over 
our  bivouac  that  night,  and  when  grey- 
footed  dawn  came  shrinking  among  the 
sandhills  we  were  vividly  awake,  aching  in 
bone  and  mind. 

These  things  pass,  however,  and  before 
the  order  to  mount  was  given  we  had  de- 
rived a  certain  amount  of  enjoyment  out  of 
the   performance   of  our   toilet,   which   con- 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     51 

sisted  of  shaking  as  many  pounds  of  damp 
sand  out  of  our  clothing  as  was  possible 
without  disrobing. 

"  Get  mounted  !  "  The  "  old  man  "  had 
ridden  past,  and  his  was  the  mumbled  order, 
the  words  bitten  off  as  if  his  jaws  were  frozen 
— as  they  very  possibly  were. 

Some  of  us,  an  inconsiderable  minority, 
got  into  the  saddle  at  the  first  attempt.  The 
rest  found,  with  a  sort  of  numbed  surprise, 
that  sleeping  on  damp,  cold  sand  is  not  con- 
ducive to  that  equestrian  elan  upon  which, 
as  a  squadron^  we  prided  ourselves. 

One,  G ,  notoriously  short  in  the  legs, 

presented  an  amazing  spectacle.  He  had 
contrived  somehow  to  get  about  half-way 
up  the  side  of  his  steep  horse,  and  there 
he  hung,  like  an  unhappy  limpet,  breathing 
heavily,  and  trying,  apparently,  to  mesmerize 
himself  into  the  saddle.  Men  in  happier 
positions  than  he  strove  to  comfort  him. 
One  unmerciful  suggested  that  he  should 
start  all  over  again,  and  another  recom- 
mended the  hand  -  over  -  hand  method  of 
swarming  up  the  stirrup  leather  as  being 
both   safe  and   picturesque. 

A  really  pitiful  sight,  too,  was  our  dear 
old  squadron  sergeant-major.     By  virtue  of 


52  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

his  exalted  office  he  was  the  owner  of  the 
most  imposing  horse  in  the  squadron,  and 
for  the  few  minutes  before  a  friendly 
hand  canted  him  up  into  the  saddle  from 
behind,  the  old  gentleman,  who  was  not  as 
young  as  his  attestation  papers  showed, 
and  was,  besides,  nearly  doubled  up  with 
cramp,  looked  as  if  he  were  going  to  break 
down,  and,  as  our  amateur  Irishman  said 
to  me  afterwards  :  "  Not  a  blissed  hand- 
kerchief among  the  whole  squadron  iv  us  !  " 

Our  horses,  poor  beasts,  were  trembling 
with  cold,  but  they  moved  off  briskly 
enough,  as  if  glad  of  the  exercise,  and  by 
the  time  that  we  had  struggled  into  some 
sort  of  formation  they  were  going  quite 
easily. 

Our  bivouac,  although  we  had  not  known 
it,  had  lain  on  the  very  fringe  of  the  dune- 
field,  and  a  few  hundred  yards  brought  us 
out  on  to  a  hog-backed  ridge  of  granitie 
that  to  our  right  uplifted  into  larger  hills, 
and  to  our  left  dipped  down  into  a  hollow 
on  the  farther  side  of  which  stood  the 
block-house  of  our  previous  acquaintance. 

We  gasped  with  surprise,  but  there  was 
no  mistaking  it.  There,  on  the  rusted  corru- 
gated iron,  were  the  sprawling  letters.     We 


SANDSTORMS-CEREMONIES     53 

spelt  them  out  to  make  sure :  '*  F-o-r-t 
G-r-a-s-p-1-a-t-z."  On  that  moment  of  swift 
joy,  there  came  an  order,  back -flung  from 
somewhere  in  the  advance,  and  we  wheeled 
sharply  to  the  right.  We  ploughed  through 
a  "vlei  "  of  white  sand.  Another  order — 
it  sounded  like  a  bark — and  we  tumbled  out 
of  our  saddles  and  crawled,  filled  with  an 
unholy  joy,  to  a  fringe  of  rocks,  and  waited. 

The  squadron  went  straight  on,  the  "  old 
man "  riding  a  little  to  one  side  and  in 
advance.  We  saw  him  signal,  and  watched 
breathlessly  the  miracle  of  precision  that 
followed.  No.  2  Troop  wheeled  half -right, 
No.  I  three-quarters  left.  No.  3  swept 
straight  on.  They  were  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  the  blockhouse  now.  Surely  they 
would  be  seen  !  No  I  A  hollow  in  the 
ground  took  them,  and  we  breathed  again. 

Where  were  the  others?  No.  2  we  could 
see.  The  men  were  dismounting  and  creep- 
ing up  the  flank  of  a  ridge  of  rock.  No.  i 
had  disappeared  as  completely  as  though 
they  had  never  been,  and  we  could  only 
conjecture  that  they  were  somewhere  in 
the  piled  rocks  to  the  left  of  the  block- 
house. Hullo  I  There  was  No.  3  again,  on 
the    sky-line,    and    far    beyond   the    "fort." 


54  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

The  **  old  man  "  knew  what  he  was  doing, 
by  Jove  !  Fort  Grasplatz  now  lay  in  the 
centre  of  the  squadron,  and  we  snuggled 
down  and  blew  specks  of  sand  from  the 
breeches  of  our  rifles. 

Our  troop  oflicer  came  and  lay  down  be- 
side me  with  a  happy  little  sigh. 

**  They  won't  get  away  from  us  this 
time,"  he  said,  and  focused  his  glasses  on 
the  buildings. 

Below  the  crest  upon  which  we  lay  the 
torn  and  twisted  metals  of  the  railway  flung 
a  new  note  of  colour  into  the  lavish  scheme 
of  sunrise.  Teutonic  thoroughness  again  ! 
Every  single  section  of  rail  was  broken,  the 
twisted  ends  sticking  grotesquely  up  into  the 
air,  and  below  each  a  hollow  in  the  sand 
showed  where  the  dynamite  had  been  placed. 

We  did  not  know  then  what  that  railway 
was  to  mean  to  us  :  of  the  months  of  wait- 
ing that  were  to  be  ours,  while  the  engineers 
relaid  the  line  and  pushed  it,  bit  by  bit, 
painfully,  farther  into  the  desert ;  of  the 
blockhouses  that  were  to  spring  up  beside 
its  reconstructed  length  ;  and  of  the  weary 
vigil  that  was  to  be  the  portion  of  the  infantry 
throughout  that  campaign  of  thirst  and 
blistering  sandstorm. 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     55 

For  the  moment  all  our  ambition  and 
interest  in  life  was  centred  in  that  group  of 
tin  sheds  across  the  hollow,  and  already  we 
began  to  sense  that  ours  had  been  a  fool's 
errand  ;  that  "  Fort  Grasplatz  "  had  not  been 
re -occupied  by  the  enemy,  and  that,  after 
all,  there  was  to  be  no  "  fun." 

Two  minutes  later  we  were  sure.  A 
crouching  figure  appeared  for  an  instant 
among  the  rocks  on  the  farther  side  of  the 
fort,  and  was  gone  again  so  quickly  that  it 
seemed  like  a  trick  of  the  eyesight.  Another, 
and  then  another,  and  there,  below  the  sheds, 
a  group  of  three  or  four  more. 

"  Don't  fire  !  They're  our  fellows."  The 
warning  was  unnecessary.  In  that  clear  light 
it  was  possible  not  only  to  see  that  they 
were  our  men,  but  also,  in  some  cases,  to 
recognize   individuals. 

''Look!     There's  old  M ."     (M 

was  a  sergeant  of  No.  3,  notable  chiefly, 
perhaps,  for  his  dignity  of  manner.)  At 
that  distance,  and  on  all  fours  behind  a  rock, 
he  looked  amazingly  like  a  rabbit,  and  an 
infectious  giggle  from  somewhere  down  the 
ridge  was  caught  up  by  the  line,  and 
enlarged  into   open   laughter. 

A  few  seconds  later  Mi was  seen  to 


56  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

be  on  his  feet,  making  desperate  efforts  in 
the  wake  of  a  rush  of  men  on  the  block- 
house. We  saw  them  coerce  the  door  with 
a  rifle -butt,  saw  one  man  hoisted  by  a  com- 
panion through  an  open  window,  and 
watched  while  what  looked  like  a  pair  of 
boots  was  thrown  out.  Followed  a  shower 
of  miscellaneous  articles  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish, and  our  officer  rose  to  his  feet, 
with  the  light  of  battle  in  his  eyes.  "  Loot  !  " 
he  observed  shortly.      "  Get  mounted  !  " 

There  is  not  much  more  to  be  said  of  our 
second  attack  on  Fort  Grasplatz.  A  note 
in  my  diary  sums  up  the  affair  into  the 
words,  *'  Breakfasted  on  the  remains  of  our 
previous  loot,"  and  that  was  really  all  that 
happened. 

Our  first  month  or  six  weeks  in  the 
German  South -West  saw  several  such 
"  attacks,"  and  we  used  to  draw  up  pro- 
grammes that  told  how  "  on  October  —  D 
Squadron,  I.L.H.,  will  recapture  Fort  Gras- 
platz, under  the  management  of  Lieut. -Col. 
D— Ids— n.      All  bioscope  rights  reserved  !  " 

The  "  old  man  "  really  did  seem  to  de- 
velop an  amazing  affection  for  surrounding 
those  empty  sheds.  We,  of  course,  used 
to    humour    him,    and    nothing    could    have 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     57 

exceeded  the  gravity  with  which  we  would, 
time  after  time,  follow  him  through  a 
night  march  in  pursuit  of  his  hobby,  nor 
surpassed  the  spirit  with  which  we  used  to 
storm  the  fort  under  his  benign  approval. 

On  this  occasion,  however,  the  game  was 
still  delightfully  new,  and  if  we  grumbled 
at  all,  it  was  mainly  because  No.  3  Troop 
had  collared  a  case  of  tinned  milk,  and  had 
omitted  to  share  it  round.  It  was  in  things 
of  this  kind  that  the  war  was  brought  home 
to  us. 

On  our  way  back  to  Luderitzbucht  we  rode 
across  the  fringe  of  sand  where  the  Germans 
had  ambushed  our  advance  screen  only  three 
days  before.  Of  that  brisk  little  encounter 
we  had  carried  away  a  very  vivid  picture^ 
and  we  were  morbidly  curious  to  see  again 
the  festoon  of  dead  horses  and  to  point  out 
to  each  other  where  So-and-so  had  fallen, 
and  where  this  or  that  German  had  lain. 

Here  was  the  spur  of  rock  beside  which 

E had    crouched    while    he    shot    the 

German  who  had  shot  his  horse,  and  here, 

round  this  corner Hullo  I     Where  were 

the  horses,  and — but  this  could  not  be  the 
place,  surely?  And  yet,  and  yet  these 
were  unmistakably  the  rocks   behind  which 


58  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

the  enemy  had'  lain  in  wait  for  us.  Then 
what  in  the  name  of  all  that  was  wonder- 
ful was  this  sea  of  sand-dunes  doing  here? 
Three  days  before  this  had  been  a  level  plain 
of  white  sandj  and  now 

We  rode  on,  silent  with  wonder.  No.  2 
Troop,  a  hundred  yards  or  so  in  the  ad- 
vance, halted,  and  we  could  see  that  the 
head  of  every  man  was  turned  to  the 
right.  They  were  staring  curiously  at 
something  that  we  could  not  see,  and  we 
crowded  in  on  the  heels  of  their  horses., 
Ah  !  So  that  was  the  explanation.  From 
the  flank  of  the  straggling  sand-dunes  before 
us  there  protruded  the  quarters  and  stiffly 
outstretched  hind  legs  of  a  horse. 

A  breeze  that  was  to  grow  later  into  a 
pukka  sandstorm  was  driving  a  fine  mist 
of  sand  over  the  crest  of  the  dune,  and 
while  we  watched  a  steady,  ceaseless 
stream  of  sand  slid  gently  down  its  flank, 
and  quite  perceptibly  added  to  the  grave 
of  the  poor  animal  beneath.  A  week 
later,  when  we  again  visited  the  place,  a 
contrary  wind  had  sent  the  dunes  back 
whence  they  had  come,  and  the  sun-dried, 
shrunken  bodies  of  the  horses  blistered  the 
landscape,  plain  for  all  to  see. 


SANDSTORMS— CEREMONIES     59 

Wander-dunen  of  the  Germans,  ye  are 
fitly  named  indeed.  In  that  grim  desert  land, 
where  is  neither  beast  nor  bird,  your  wind- 
sown  graves  perform  at  least  a  vagrant  office 
over  poor  carrion  that  lies  by  the  way — 
grisly  milestones  that  mark  man's  con- 
quest of  desert  and  of  fellow -man — carrion 
untended  else,  till,  bleached  and  dried  by 
wind  and  sun,  it  moves  to  the  lightest  touch, 
and,  finally,  is  broken  up  and  frayed  to  dust 
and  follows  after  the  restless,  changing 
winds,  leaving  only  a  pile  of  gleaming  bones 
to  mark  the  spot. 


CHAPTER    IV 

SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS 

The  week  that  followed  upon  our  second 
taking  of  Fort  Grasplatz  brought  us  a 
passing  interest  in  new  arrivals  :  the  Natal 
Carbineers,  the  Pretoria  Regiment,  the 
Kaffrarian  Rifles,  a  battery  of  the  Natal 
Field  Artillery,  the  Eastern  Rifles,  the  ist 
Kimberley  Regiment,  and— it  was  whispered 
— a  brand-new  Brigadier  with  a  brand-new 
Staff  to  match. 

A  bare  note  in  my  diary  states  simply 
that  they  came.  Of  the  order  of  their 
coming  is  no  mention,  but  then,  not  even 
official  records,  I  believe,  could  have  lucidly 
sustained  the  sandstorm  that  snarled  over 
Luderitzbucht  throughout  the  whole  of  that 
infernal  week.  Through  it  were  caught 
glimpses,  here  and  there,  of  herds  of  bag- 
gage-laden infantry  being  driven  to  allot- 
ted   camping -grounds  ;     of    spick-and-span 

Carbineers  striving  desperately  to  maintain 

60 


SIGHTS   AND    SMELLS  6i 

the  dignity  of  their  spurs— and  almost  suc- 
ceeding ;  of  kicking  mules  and  cursing 
drivers  ;  strings  of  horses,  wagons,  guns, 
more  drivers  (still  cursing),  native  scouts, 
poultice -wallopers  (courtesy  title  of  the 
S.A.M.C),  and  all  the  rag -tag  and  bob- 
tail of  our  amateur  army. 

A  hard-bitten  company  of  the  Veterinary 
Corps  drifted  down  upon  us,  and  asked  if 

there   was  beer  :   they   had   heard .      We 

told  them.  Yes  ;  there  was  beer,  but  there 
was  none  now.  We  were  sorry.  Where- 
upon, and  without  enthusiasm,  they  said 
that  it  didn't  matter,  and  drifted  away, 
still  searching.  Others,  but  these  were  of 
the  infantry,  forlorn  units  blown  from  all 
knowledge  of  their  whereabouts,  we  found 
huddled  under  the  lee  of  buildings.  They 
bleated  at  us  joylessly,  and  asked  many 
questions.  Was  this  a  sandstorm?  Were 
there  many  Germans  about?  and — but  this 
was  inevitable  and  unvaried— had  we  found 
many  diamonds? 

We  would  usually  tell  them  that  our  kit- 
bags  could  hold  no  more,  whereupon  they 
would  break  down  and  beg  to  be  taken 
back  to  their  regiments.  We  did  not,  of 
course,  entertain  the  slightest  knowledge  of 


62  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

their  regiments'  whereabouts,  but,  as  some- 
thing was  obviously  expected  of  us,  we 
would  indicate  variously  all  four  points  of 
the  compass,  and  they  would  thank  us  effu- 
sively and  merge  away,  one  by  one,  into  the 
muffled  landscape. 

Sandstorms,  however,  do  not  last  for  ever, 
and  there  came  at  last  a  day  when  the  un- 
changed hills  looked  down  upon  neat  acres 
of  canvas  and  a  new  and  startling  activity. 
All  of  our  immediate  world  was  become  .a 
geometric  pattern.  Wagons,  scores  upon 
scores  of  them,  stood  axle  to  axle  in  a  fault- 
less precision  that  led  the  eye  along  ruled 
lines  to  ordered  rows  of  water-carts  and 
tethlered  mules.  A  group  of  these  last  had 
broken  loose,  and  half  a  dozen  mathemati- 
cians with  long -handled  whips  were  chasing 
them  back  into  equational  order.  Beyond, 
again,  right-angled  horse  lines  and  a  criss- 
cross pattern  of  tents  which  was  the  Natal 
Carbineers'  camp  played  with  the  Natal 
Field  Artillery's  15 -pounders  at  being  an 
Euclidic  proposition.  Which,  of  course,  was 
absurd . 

It  has  somewhere  been  said  that  an  Army 
represents  the  only  true  democracy.  This 
is  not  true.     Nowhere  is  there  so  nice  a  class 


SIGHTS    AND   SMELLS  63 

distinction  as  in  the  Army,  and  nowhere, 
perhaps,  is  that  nicety;  so  candidly  main- 
tained. We,  the  LL.H.,  would  not  at  that 
time  have  even  dreamed  of  visiting  the 
infantry,,  but  we  called  upon  the  Carbineers 
because,  simply,  they  were  '*  mounted  men,'* 
and  as  such  our  equals .  Later,  months  later, 
out  of  the  common  thirst  and  the  sandstorms 
— all  men  are  alike  in  a  sandstorm — there 
grew  the  reluctant  conviction  that  active 
service  brings  to  pass  a  sort  of  socialistic 
millennium  in  which  regiments  are  judged 
only  by  their  performances,  and  in  which 
officers  may  at  times  speak  quite  respectfully 
to  their  men,  and  men  almost  respectfully 
of  their  officers.  That  the  moral  of  the 
mounted  man  is  usually  superior  to  that  of 
the  '*  foot-slogger  "  may  be  attributed  solely 
to  the  superior  moral  of  the  horse  that  he 
rides.  This  last  is  an  epigram,  but  true. 
The  Natal  Field  Artillery,  too,  were  on 
our  visiting  list,  and  we  found  them  to  be 
excellent  fellows.  We  swapped  lies  with 
them  ;  we  pronounced  their  guns  to  be  the 
loot  of  some  museum:  —  they  were  not, 
certainly,  of  the  newest  type — and  we 
greedily  borrowed  all  the  newspapers  that 
they  had  brought  with  them. 


64  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

It  was  in  the  N.F.A.  lines,  by.  the  way, 
one  white-hot  noon,  that  I  almost  tripped 
over  the  super -philosopher.  He  was  Irish, 
which  perhaps  makes  his  philosophy  the 
less  remarkable,  and  he  sate  upon  an  up- 
turned soap-box  and  toyed  with  a  dish 
of  something  that  sounded  like  camp 
stew. 

There  was  a  sudden  noise,  the  sort  of 
noise  that  makes  a  grown-up  say  to  a  child  : 
"  You  should  put  your  hand  before  your 
mouth  when  you  do  that  !  "  and  I  heard, 
rather  than  saw,  the  super -philosopher  clear 
his  mouth  of  some  objectionable  morsel.  I 
looked  round,  and  his  pale  eye  closed  with 
mine.  "  Praise  th'  saints  !  "  he  said,  '*  thim 
ants  have  no  bones  into  thim  !  " 

Our  interest  in  the  arrivals  did  not  last 
long.  A  new  sandstorm  blew  up  and 
swallowed  them,  and  when,  weeks  later,  it 
spat  them  out  again,  they  had  all  but  lost 
their  identity  as  far  as  we  were  concerned. 
The  infantry  became  known  to  us  simply  as 
"  foot-sloggers  "  ;  the  Carbineers,  from  a 
weakness  for  polishing  their  riding-boots, 
became  "  the  Cherry  Blossom  Brigade  "  ; 
and  we,  the  I.L.H.,  were  known  to.  all  and 
sundry  as  the  "  Ilhcit  Liquor  Hunters."     I 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  65 

do  not  think,  however,  that  we  should  have 
mindied  so  much  if  there  had  been  any 
liquor  left  to  hunt. 

We  were  kept  hard  at  work,  too,  and  we 
soon  learned  that  the  **  in-betweens  "  were 
more  profitably,  to  be  spent  in  what  we  called 
"  blanket -drill,"  and  what  our  N.C.O.'s, 
when  they  were  not  indulging  in  it  them- 
selves, called  "  darned  laziness,"  than  in 
afternoon  calls  upon  strangers  who  had 
so  thoroughly  taken  upon  themselves  the 
colour  of  their  surroundings  as  to  have 
become  as  supremely  uninteresting  as 
ourselves . 

The  deep  groaning  noise  that  a  trumpet 
makes  at  dawn,  and  which  field-officers  and 
poets  call  "  reveille,"  and  turn  over  again 
and  snore  at,  when,  by  some  rare  chance, 
they  hear  it,  was  to  us  the  first  note  in  a 
symphony  of  labour  that  was  to  last  all  day. 
•Who  has  heard  the  howls  of  execration 
that  uprise  from  a  sleeping  camp  at  its 
first  note  will  appreciate  the  truth  of  what 
I  say.  The  utter  hopelessness  of  any  resist- 
ance to  its  summons  is,  perhaps,  what  galls 
most.  Turn  you  never  so  deaf  an  ear,  you 
will  still  have  the  chilling  conviction  that 
some  N.C.O.,  with  more  liver  than  bowels 

5 


66  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

of  compassion,  is  waiting  "  outside  "  to 
mark  you  down  as  an  absentee  from  roll- 
call. 

Reveille,  roll-call,  arms  inspection,  morn- 
ing stables,  alleged  breakfast,  stable  fatigue, 
mounted  squadron  drill,  watering  and  feed- 
ing horses,  and  musketry  instruction  took  us 
by  gentle  stages  as  far  as  lunch -time.  After 
lunch  (save  the  mark  !  but  is  sand,  disguised 
as  Irish  stew,  lunch?),  Swedish  drill,  sectional 
skirmishing  on  foot,  and  an  odd  quarter- 
master's fatigue  or  so  thrown  in,  would  lead 
us  on  to  evening  stables.  That  accom- 
plished, we  were  at  liberty — those,  at  least, 
of  us  who  were  not  on  guard  for  the  night 
— to  prepare  our  evening  meal  and  to  retire 
to  our  blankets,  where,  masters  of  ourselves 
at  last,  we  could — the  writer  certainly  did  on 
one  occasion — dream  that  one-eyed  camels 
of  malevolent  aspect  chased  us  through  inter- 
minable leagues  of  sandstorm,  and  finally 
drove  us  into  seas  of  greasy  Irish  stew, 
wherefrom  emerged  horrid  shapes  that 
lectured  us  on  the  care  of  rifles  and  the 
virtues  of  discipline. 

How  we  longed  for  war,  if  only  for  its 
comparative  peace  ! 

Not  all  our  days  were  grey  days,  however. 


SIGHTS   AND    SMELLS  67 

There  came  a  period  when  each  morning 
saw  us,  clad  mainly  in  pipes  and  towels, 
taking  our  horses  down  to  a  landlocked  arm 
of  the  sea,  where  the  hills  stood  up  in  their 
glory  around  us,  and  where  flamingoes,  in 
their  stately  phalanxes,  waded  the  still 
shallows  or  flung  in  broad-pinioned  ease  to 
some  further  sand -hank  ;  where  black  seals 
bobbed  greeting  to  us  from  the  dipping 
waters,  and  where  we  could  forget  the 
sandstorms  of  yesterday  and  to-morrow. 

Horses,  we  found,  made  excellent  diving 
boards,  and  lent  themselves,  besides,  to  a 
type  of  chariot -racing  that  I  have  not  met 
elsewhere.  For  this  form  of  sport  it  is 
essential  to  have  two  horses,  and  it  usually 
became  one's  painful  duty,  therefore,  to 
borrow  the  mount  of  some  other  man, 
preferably  a  non -swimmer,  when  he  was  not 
looking,  and  then  to  make  for  deep  water 
— where  he  could  not  follow — with  as  little 
delay  as  possible.  Remained  then  only  to 
so  contrive  oneself  as  to  stand  with  a  foot 
on  the  back  of  each  animal,  and  to  keep 
them  swimming  sufficiently  near  together 
to  allow  one  to  retain  some  sort  of  balance. 
Sometimes  one  would  succeed,  but  usually, 
and  in  spite  of  extreme  efforts,  the  contrary 


68  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

beasts  would  swim  more  and  more  widely 
apart,  until  overtaxed  powers  of  doing  the 
splits  would  end  in  a  ducking  as  ignomin- 
ious as   inevitable. 

I  remember  an  occasion  when,  after  a 
long  and  tiring  patrol,  we  had  ridden  our 
horses  into  the  shallows  to  cool  their  legs,  a 
school  of  ground -sharks  suddenly  appeared, 
almost  literally,  under  their  very  noses. 
The  White  Knight  in  '*  Alice  in  Wonder- 
land," who  made  his  horse  wear  spiked 
anklets  against  the  danger  of  shark -bite, 
must  have  foreseen  some  such  contingency  ; 
but  then,  had  he  been  with  us,  he  would 
have  fallen  off,  I  feel  sure,  in  the  smother 
of  spray  and  panic  which  the  experience 
cost  us. 

One  of  our  duties  at  this  time  was  the 
providing  of  an  e3Cort  to  the  water  ration 
that  left  Luderitzbucht  each  morning  for 
Kolmanskoppe . 

The  water  was  taken  in  mule -drawn 
trolleys  along  the  railway  line  (we  possessed 
no  other  **  rolling  stock  "  at  that  time)  and 
as  it  was  the  sole  supply  of  the  two  infantry 
regiments  stationed  there,  extreme  care  had 
to  be  taken  to  prevent  its  being  intercepted 
by  a  stray  German  patrol. 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  69 

On  October  7  No.  3  Troop  had  supplied 
the  convoy,  and  we,  whose  turn  it  was  to 
do  so  on  the  morrow,  had  spent  the  greater 
part  of  the  day,  in  the  sweet  frame  of  mind 
that  is  bred  by  camp  fatigues,  and  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  were  waiting  for 
the  order  to  "  break  away  "  from  a  squad- 
ron drill  that  seemed  as  if  it  would  never 
end.  The  other  troops  had  dismissed  long 
ago,  and  we  asked  ourselves  with  some 
bitterness  why  we  should  be  kept  out  in  the 
heat  and  sand  playing  at  circuses,  and  all 
the  while  the  sharp  words  of  command 
stabbed  through  the  curtain  of  dust  that 
followed  U3,  and  punctuated  our  grumbling. 
**  On  the  left  fo-orm  troop  !  "  Some  one, 
hand-jostled  by  a  section  in  rear,  cursed 
aloud,  and  we  laughed  as  we  went  forward 
at  the  picturesque  phrase  he  had  used. 
"  Sections  right  !  "  The  sand -fog  rose  more 
thickly  about  us.  Was  this  farce  never 
going  to  end?  '*  Ha-alt  !  "  Ah  !  This  was 
the  order  for  which  we  had  been  waiting. 
The  ''  dismiss  "  would  follow,  and  there  was 
still  time  if  we  hurried  for  a  bathe  before 
evening  stables. 

But  our  O.C.  had  apparently  forgotten  us. 
He   was   gazing   with   something  of   an   air 


70  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

of  abstraction  at  a  solitary  horseman 
making  towards  us  from  the  direction  of 
the    camp . 

There  was  nothing  really  extraordinary 
in  the  sight  of  that  figure  (we  could 
recognize  him,  by  the  big,  upstanding  grey 
that  he  rode,  as  the  Colonel's  orderly), 
yet  something — his  obvious  hurry  perhaps 
— made  us  forget  our  anxiety  to  be 
dismissed . 

A  minute  later  he  had  pulled  up  before 
our  troop  leader.  "  Colonel  D n's  com- 
pliments, sir  !  and  you  are  to  report  to  him 
at  once  !  "  And  then,  in  the  confidential 
tone  that  orderlies  learn  from  their  constant 
association  with  the  higher  ranks  :  "  Water 
guard,  sir  !  "  I  could  just  catch  the  words  : 
*'  .  .  .  German  patrol  .  .  .  one  .  .  . 
chap  wounded.  .  .  .  What's  that,  sir  ?  .  .  . 
Yes,  one  of  our  fellows." 

"  Sections  right  !  Wa-alk  'arch  !  Tr-r-ot  !  " 
There  was  life  in  the  order  this  time,  and 
there  was  life,  too,  in  our  quick  response. 
The  horses  even  seemed  to  be  infected, 
and  we  had  to  hold  them  a  little  as  we 
pounded  along  in  the  wake  of  the  news- 
bringer . 

"  Steady,  there  !      Ye   don't  want  to  ride 


SIGHTS   AND    SMELLS  71 

the  sentries  down,  do  ye?"  The  camp 
buildings  had  leaped  out  at  us  from  the 
yellow  haze  of  our  own  progress,  and  the 
corporal  of  the  guard  had  flattened  himself 
against  a  wall — just  in  time.  We  pulled  up 
and  rode  in  soberly.  Men  of  other  troops 
dashed  at  us  and  held  our  horses.  "  Lucky 
devils  I  "  they  said,  and  bade  us  get  our 
bandoliers  and  rifles .  From  them  we  learned 
that  a  German  patrol  had  lain  in  wait  for 
the  water  convoy  at  a  point  some  three  miles 
up  the  line,  had  potted  one  of  our  men 
through  the  thigh,  and  had  retired  without 
our  fellows  being  able  to  fire  a  shot  in 
exchange,  and  now,  we — "  lucky  4,"  they 
called  us — were  going  out  to  hunt  them. 
**  And  I  don't  suppose  they've  gone  far,"  one 
informed  me.  "  I  expect  they'll  be  waiting 
for  you,  an'  p'raps  they'll  shoot  one  of  you. 
I  know  I  hope  they  will — you  lucky,  lucky 
devils  !  " 

Into  the  press  of  chaff  and  counter -chaff, 
and  the  excitement  of  straps  and  buckles, 
rode  one,  speaking  with  the  large  voice 
of  small  authority,  and  hung  about  with 
"  the  complete  campaigner's  outfit."  Not 
a  detail — if  we  except  the  camp -stretcher 
and  the  cork -mattress — was  missing.    Water- 


72  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

bottle,  haversack,  prismatic  compass,  field- 
glasses,  first  aid  outfit,  and  sand  goggles  — 
the  White  Knight  again  ! 

As  a  quick-change  artist  he  should  have 
commanded  our  ready  admiration.  As  it 
was,  he  provided  just  that  sobering  touch 
of  humour  that  we  needed.  "  Go  in'  to  take 
all  week  to  get  ready?"  he  queried  with 
that  heavy  urbanity  which  N.C.O.'s  and 
stage  managers  mistake  for  satire,  "  .  .  . 
passel  o'  ladies'  maids  !  " 

"  Oh  !  you — you  May  queen  !  "  I  heard 
some  one  say,  and  the  troop  giggled  help- 
lessly as  we  swung  into  our  saddles. 
"  Number  off  from  the  right  !  "  the  order 
was  barked  at  us. 

"  One  "  — ''  two  "  —  "  three  " .         The 

fourth  man  was  having  trouble  with  his  pony 
and  was  far  too  busy  to  think  of  mere 
numbers,  and  the  White  Knight  glared  down 
the  line  of  us  as  if,  in  some  way,  just  out- 
side his  comprehension,  we  were  all  to  blame. 
'*  As  you  were  !  "  he  snapped — it  sounded 
like    "  Zwear  "  !       "  Number    off    from    the 

ri "    "No  time  for  that  now,  Sergeant  !  " 

spoke  the  crisp  voice  of  the  O.C.  from  some- 
where behind  us.  "  Sections  left  I  Walk 
march  !     Tr-r-ot  !  "  and  the  quick  dust  rose 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  jz 

to  the  forward  surge  of  horses  and  men, 
and  we  were  off. 

Five  minutes  later  we  had  passed  the  out- 
lying pickets  of  the  Transvaal  Scottish,  and 
were  kicking  up  the  sand  at  a  good  hand- 
canter  along  the  hill -girt  railway  line  to 
Kolmanskuppe.  There  is  a  peculiar  exhila- 
ration in  this  form  of  sport  (I  cannot  easily 
use  the  term  "  warfare  "  in  regard  to  a  game 
wherein  all  that  is  ordinarily  known  as 
*'  patriotism  "  is  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  a 
wholesome,  primal,  man's  desire  to  hunt  man 
— the  royalest  of  royal  game — for  the  sake, 
only,  of  the  game's  lust),  and  if  in  G.S.W. 
we  were  rather  like  the  famous  American 
hunter  who  had  never  been  known  to  kill 
anything,  but  who  "  just  hunted  " — well, 
such  little  killing  as  did  come  our  way  proved 
conclusively  that  "  just  hunting  "  held  all 
the  breathless  joy  of  the  thing  and  left  no — 
aftertaste. 

For  some  miles  we  held  our  pace,  and 
the  heavy,  springless  sand  through  which 
we  rode  flung  its  yellow  veil  about  us. 
There  was  the  sound  of  wind  in  our  ears, 
and  the  creaking  of  saddle  -  leather,  a 
vague  surging  noise,  as  of  a  heavy  ground- 
swell  sucking  through  rocks,  and,  over  all. 


74  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

the  choking,  blinding  pall  of  dust.  An 
oath,  back -flung  from  a  leading  section 
where  a  horse  had  stumbled,  sounded 
smothered  and  unreal.  Now  and  again  an 
outcrop  of  bare  granite  would  leap  out 
to  meet  us,  and  the  brief  thunder  of  our 
passing  would  shout  back  from  the  echoing 
hills ;  then  sand  again,  and  its  muflled 
tumult. 

The  valley  became  narrower,  and  a  hint 
of  coolness  stole  down  the  sudden  shadows. 
All  on  a  moment  a  swift  hand  plucked  the 
sunlight  from  us,  and  the  jaws  of  the  hills 
closed  suddenly  about  our  path— closed, 
closed,  until  the  ribbon  of  steel  that  we  knew 
to  be  the  railway  line  looked  like  a  tongue 
lolling  from  the  cleft  grin  before  us.  There 
was  a  silence  in  that  place,  and  our  horses 
pricked  quick,  apprehensive  ears  to  it. 
"  What  a  place  for  an  ambush  !  "  said  some 
one  of  my  section,  and  the  angry  '*  Don't  be 
a  fool  !  "  of  the  man  to  whom  he  had  spoken 
showed  that  three  of  us,  at  least,  were  think- 
ing of  the  same  thing.  The  click  of  a  steel- 
shod  hoof  striking  against  stone,  and — 
"  click  !  "  back  would  come  the  answer  of 
the  rocks  ;  just  the  sort  of  noise  that  the 
bolt    of    a    Mauser    rifle    makes    when    it    is 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  75 

drawn  back  to Well,  speaking  per- 
sonally, I  do  not  suppose  that  I  should  have 
noticed  it  if  my  horse  hadn't  jumped  so. 

It  was  here,  or  hereabouts,  that  our  patrol 
had  been  fired  on  only  a  few  hours  beforei, 
and  we  had  received  no  particular  assurance 
that  ours  was  not  likely  to  be  a  similar  ex- 
perience. On  the  contrary,  every  breathing 
instant  was  pregnant  with  possibility,  and, 
be   it    said,    a    sort   of  half -shrinking   hope. 

A  barrier  of  great  boulders,  through  which 
the  line  won  a  bare  clearance,  stood  suddenly 
up  against  us.  Just  the  place  for  an  ambush  ; 
but  nothing  happened  save,  perhaps,  that 
one  was  conscious  more  of  one's  own  breath- 
ing after  it  was  passed.  A  hundred  yards 
or  so  farther  on  the  hills  to  our  right  fell 
away  in  a  great  curve,  and  sheeted  sunlight 
lay  on  all  the  place  ;  orange,  streaked  with 
silver  of  drift -sand  on  the  shining  plain, 
while  beyond,  and  high  above  all,  white - 
faced  crags  swam  on  an  opal -hearted  mist. 
To  our  right  a  mad  sunset  flared  above  the 
purple -footed  hills,  and  pointed  long,  scorn - 
fill,  shadow  -  fingers  at  us.  Sunset?  or 
drunken  magic?  Saffron  there  was,  and 
duck's-egg  green  lying  on  amber ;  amber 
that  dripped  molten   gold,   and  tipped  with 


76  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

splendid  colour  the  peaks  which  stood  up 
blackly  against  it ;  amber,  shot  with  blush- 
rose  and  slashed  with  fierce  scarlet :  a 
breathless  wonder  that  changed  while  we 
watched  it — changed  and  deepened  until 
all  the  painted  sky  was  a  blood -clotted 
glory. 

Night  had  stepped  into  the  valley  in 
which  we  rode,  and  I  was  not  sorry  when 
my  section  was  picked  out  for  "  flanking 
work,"  and  we  were  sent  at  a  sharp  trot  to 
the  foot-hills  and  the  sunlight.  We  were 
told  to  keep  slightly  in  advance  of  the 
troop,  and,  as  the  broken  nature  of  the 
ground  allowed,  about  three  hundred  yards 
distant  from  the  railway  line,  the  idea  being, 
of  course,  that  should  an  enemy  patrol  be 
waiting  for  us  among  the  rocks,  we — "  the 
advance  screen  " — would  draw  their  fire,  and 
so  secure  some  measure  of  safety  for  our 
main  body.  A  leading  section  was  sent  off 
to  the  shadow -land  on  the  right  of  the  line, 
and,  looking  back  when  we  had  ridden  some 
hundred  yards  or  so,  I  saw  two  other  sections 
detach  themselves  from  the  main  body,  and 
drop  back,  to  the  right  and  left  respectively, 
as  a  sort  of  extended  rear-guard. 

"  As  the  nature  of  the  ground  allowed  "  I 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  77 

The  words  were  the  letter  of  our  instruc- 
tions ;  the  exclamation  mark,  as  Punch 
might  say,  was  ours  when  the  first  gentle 
slope  that  we  negotiated  jumped  suddenly 
up  into  a  hog-backed  "  krantz,"  that  looked 
as  if  it  might  strain  even  a  klipspringer. 
It  had  to  be  done,  however,  and  we  laid 
ourselves  on  our  horses'  necks  and  let  them 
go  at  it.  What  a  breathless  scramble  it 
was  !  Loose  shale  avalanched  about  us,  and 
steel -shod  hoofs  slipped  and  struck,  and 
struck  and  slipped  again  on  the  crisp  granite, 
and  just  when  it  seemed  to  me  that 
nothing  was  left  but  to  dismount  and  pull 
my  horse  up  after  me,  there  was  a  last, 
furious  straining  of  willing  muscles,  a 
plunge  that  shook  my  hat  over  my  eyes, 
and  the  four  of  us  were  landed  in  a  hard- 
breathing  bunch  on  a  sort  of  shelf  of  rock. 
A  girth  had  slipped,  and  we  paused  while 
it  was  tightened,  and  looked  back.  The 
troop  was  halted — while  we  attained  our 
position,  I  supposed — and  as  we  watched,  a 
figure  rode  clear  of  the  others  and  signalled 
agitatedly  to  us  to  advance. 

It  was  comparatively  easy,  from  our  eleva- 
tion, to  select  a  route  that  conformed  measur- 
ably to  our  instructions  and  to  the  opposing 


78  WITH    BOTHA'S  ARMY 

factor  of  our  own  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion. Only  comparatively  easy,  however, 
because  distances  that  looked  flat,  or,  at  the 
most,  but  gently  tilted,  proved  on  closer 
inspection  to  be  almost  worth  the  serious 
consideration  of  an  Alpine  Club.  But  we 
managed  to  scramble  along  somehow. 
When  possible,  we  even  went  farther  into 
the  spirit  of  our  instructions,  and  rode  in 
extended  formation,  but,  although  our  horses 
displayed  an  amazing  aptitude  for  rock -work, 
we  usually  found  ourselves  progressing  in 
single  file.  Once,  I  remember,  when  a  flat 
surface  of  rock  tempted  us  to  something 
approaching  a  trot,  we  pulled  up  only  a 
few  yards  short  of  where  the  hill  ended 
abruptly,  and  lay,  piled  about  its  own  foot, 
hundreds  of  feet  below.  It  was  from  there, 
too,  that  we  first  caught  sight  of  the  white 
buildings  of  Kolmanskuppe,  some  two  or 
three  miles  away,  but  although  it  was  a 
cheering  sight,  we  went  on  from  that  place 
with  much  sedateness  and  circumspection. 
All  serious  thought  of  meeting  the  enemy 
patrol  had  vanished,  of  course,  with  that 
first  glimpse  of  "  civilization."  Only  one 
ordeal  now  remained  :  to  get  ourselves  down, 
out  of  that  region  of  sunlight  and  breath- 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  79 

lessness,  to  where,  with  the  lesser  hills,  began 
the  last  phase  of  our  journey. 

One  attempt  landed  us  in  a  cul-de-sac  of 
tumbled  granite,  another  on  a  tongue  of 
rock  that  would  have  proved  perfectly 
negotiable  if  the  tongue  had  not  been  bitten 
short,  or  if  there  had  been  a  bridge  across 
the  forty-foot  chasm  that  grinned  up  at  us  ; 
but,  eventually,  by  winding  in  single  file 
round  a  spur  of  rock  where  a  false  step 
meant— as  one  of  us  said  and  giggled  so 
much  at,  that  he  all  but  put  his  assertion 
to  the  proof — "  more  than  a  bad  cold  "  for 
the  man  who  slipped,  we  found  a  steep 
slope  wheredown  we  tobogganed  with  safety 
and  some  amusement  to  ourselves,  but  not 
a  little  detriment,  I  think,  to  the  tails  of  our 
horses . 

The  troop,  we  found,  had  taken  courage 
of  the  less  imposing  scenery,  and  were  just 
visible  in  a  cloud  of  dust  some  half  a  mile 
ahead  of  us.  Just  outside  Kolmanskuppe 
the  railway  line  takes  a  sharp  bend  to  the 
left,  and  as  half  a  mile  in  the  rear  does 
not  exactly  correspond  with  the  M.I.  hand- 
book's definition  of  an  advance  guard's 
position,  we  kicked  up  our  tired  animals  and 
made  a   desperate  effort,   by  cutting  across 


So  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

the  angle  of  the  hne,  to  regain  some  measure 
of  dignity.  What  the  troop  thought  when, 
some  ten  minutes  later,  we  reappeared  in 
advance  of  them,  I  do  not  know.  Th^y: 
looked  rather  indifferent,  I  thought,  and 
when,  soon  afterwards,  a  ragged  fringe  of 
infantry  appeared  on  the  sky-line  above  us — 
Kolmanskuppie  is  on  the  edge  of  the  desert 
proper,  and  looks  as  if  it  had  been  washed 
up  by  the  sea  of  mountainous  sand-dunes — 
and  the  troop,  realizing  apparently  that  there 
was  really  no  need  to  follow  its  meticulous 
course  along  the  railway  metals,  wheeled 
sharply  to  the  right,  we  cantered  down  and, 
with  all  humility,  tied  ourselves  on  to  its 
tail. 

In  the  number  of  its  houses,  Kolmans- 
kuppe  is  not  a  large  place  ;  in  the  extent 
covered  by  such  buildings  as  there  are  it 
is  quite  considerable.  An  average  distance 
of  about  one  hundred  yards  between  the 
houses,  and  the  glaring  monotony  of  their 
design  stifles  any  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
visitor  unduly  to  prolong  his  tour  of  in- 
spection . 

In  the  ordinary  sense  we  were  not,  of 
course,  visitors,  and  besides,  we  had  "  done  " 
Kolmanskuppe,    more    thoroughly    than    an 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  8i 

American  tourist  does  Rome,  on  a  previous 
occasion.  Then,  we  had  been  actuated  by 
other  than  guide-book  motives,  and  now,  its 
interest  gone,  the  place  was  become  an 
eyesore,  and  we  wanted  to  go  home.  That, 
we  supposed,  was  why  we  got  the  order  to 
off-saddle. 

The  one  picturesque  touch  in  the  picture 
was  supplied  by  our  three  camels.  They 
were  there  on  some  water-carrying  pretext, 
and  they  recognized  us  from  afar  off,  and 
came  and  stood  to  windward  of  us  so  that 
there  could  be  no  remote  possibility  of  our 
not  recognizing  them. 

We  never  seemed,  somehow,  to  be  able 
to  get  away  from  those  three  gaunt  beasts. 
No  matter  the  direction  of  our  journeyings, 
we  always  met  them  sooner  or  later.  We 
should  not,  of  course,  have  minded  if  they 
had  shown  any  signs  of  awakening  affection 
for  us,  but  they  didn't.  It  was  their 
sneering  indifference  to  our  presence  that 
galled  us  most,  I  think.  Had  we  been  in 
the  habit  of  thrusting  ourselves  upon  them, 
this  attitude  would  have  been  understand- 
able, even  commendable ;  but  we  didn't 
thrust  ourselves  upon  them.  They  hatched 
deliberate   plots   to   meet   us   in   unexpected 

6 


82  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

places,  and  when  we  met  they  sneered  at 
us,  and  besides,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere, 
they  smelt  abominably.  In  very  truth, 
Tartarin  of  Tarascon  was  not  more  haunted 
by  his  own  camel  than  were  we  by  our  three . 

The  corporal  who  was  in  charge  of  them 
slouched  to  us  from  somewhere  out  of  the 
desert — he  was  borrowing  habits  right  and 
left  from  his  camels,  we  often  told  him — 
and  gave  us  the  cheerful  information  that 
we  were  to  convoy  some  wagons  back  to 
Luderitzbucht,  which  wagons,  he  added, 
were  only  then  being  off-loaded.  Dusk  was 
spreading  like  a  grey  blanket  across  the  face 
of  the  sands,  and  the  prospect  of  a  night 
ride  at  the  tail  of  a  string  of  creaking  wagons 
was  not  enticing.  We  asked  him  how 
he  knew,  and  he  retired  into  his  newly 
acquired  camelism,  and  went  off  to  his 
uncouth  beasts. 

But  he  was  right,  and  an  hour  later  saw 
us — or  heard  us  rather,  for  it  was  pitch 
dark — starting  on  such  a  ride  as  I  hope 
never  again  to  suffer.  The  road  from 
Kolmanskuppe  to  Luderitzbucht  is  rendered 
distinct  from  the  country  through  which  it 
runs  by  means  of  white -painted  paraffin 
tins  placed  at   irregular   intervals  along  its 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  83 

alleged  sides.  That  it  does  not  otherwise 
differ  to  any  marked  extent  from  the  sur- 
rounding country  is  due  less,  I  think,  to 
the  surveyor  than  to  the  country,  which  is 
mainly  precipices  and  small  but  very 
knobby  hills.  I  have  since  travelled  that 
road  in  the  daytime,  and  its  unrelieved 
roughness — unless  an  occasional  wallow  in 
deep  sand  can  be  called  relief — makes  of  it 
a  thing  to  be  remembered ;  but  of  that 
night,  when  our  nostrils,  and  our  throats, 
and  our  eyes  were  filled  with  the  dust 
kicked  up  by  close  upon  a  hundred  mules 
and  half  as  many  horses,  and  our  ears  were 
deafened  by  the  harsh  thunder  of  empty 
wagons  bouncing  into  and  out  of  deep  holes 
and  over  fire -spitting  granite  boulders, 
recollection  is  a  mere  headache. 

For  the  first  half-mile  or  so — my  section 
had  now  become  the  rearguard — we  rode  at 
some  fifty  yards  behind  the  last  wagon. 
We  did  this  for  several  reasons  :  firstly, 
because  the  air  was  less  full  of  dust  at 
that  distance ;  secondly,  because  we  could 
more  or  less  select  our  own  pace  instead 
of  having,  every  now  and  then,  to  pull  our 
horses  back  upon  their  haunches  to  avoid 
spitting    them    on    the    brake    handle    of    a 


84  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

wagon  stopped  suddenly,  in  its  drunken 
career  by,  virtue  of  collision  with  some 
more  than  usually  imposing  obstruction ; 
and  thirdly — but  this  I  do  not  think  was  a 
real  reason — because  we  had  been  ordered 
to  do  so. 

We  were  going  down  some  unseen  slope, 
I  remember,  when  the  change  occurred. 
My  horse  was  plunging  a  good  deal,  and 
I  had  to  use  both  hands  to  prevent  his 
getting  away  from  me.  The  man  on  my 
right  seemed  to  be  having  similar  difficulty 
with   his    animal.      Strange  !    they  were   all 

quiet   enough   a  minute   ago,   and  now 

"  Look  out  !  "  The  words  were  shot  at  me 
by  No.  3  of  the  section  as,  with  his  horse 
completely  out  of  control,  he  raced  passed  me 
into  the  darkness  and  the  dust.  "  Rumtny," 
said  the  man  on  my  right,  "  I  don't  know 
what's  the  matter  with  the  beasts.  They're 
scared  out  of  their  lives,  that  I'll  swear — 
Good  Lord  !  "  His  ejaculation  was  spoken 
away  from  me,  for  his  pony  had  swung 
suddenly  about  with  a  quick,  frightened 
movement,  and  was  now  staring  into  the 
blackness  fnom  whence  we  had  come.  A 
moment  later  and  my  own  beast  had  spun 
around.     We  waited  in  silence. 


SIGHTS   AND   SMELLS  85 

**  Where's    T ?  "    said    the   other   man 

suddenly.     (T was   of  my  section,   and 

I  seemed  vaguely  to  remember  that  he  had 
teen  riding  behind  us.)     If  my  memory  was 

right,  then  T was  somewhere  out  there 

in  the  blackness,  and  the — the — whatever 
it  was  that  was  frightening  our  horses  was 
out  there  with  him.  It  was  not  a  nice 
thought.  We  waited  again,  and  I  found 
myself  wondering  what  it  would  sound  like 

to  call  out  T 's  name,  when  out  of  the 

darkness  came  the  sound  of  a  snort,  fol- 
lowed by  what  seemed  like  the  frenzied 
plunging  of  some  heavy  beast.  Then  a 
voice  uplifted  itself  in  earnest  supplica- 
tion, and  the  voice  was  the  voice  of  T . 

He  seemed  to  be  calling  upon  the  name 
of  a  god  not  altogether  orthodox.  I 
caught,  here  and  there,  strong  expressions 
of  his  disapproval  of  some  person  or  thing. 
The  voice  was  growing  louder  and  clearer, 

and    it    became    obvious    that    T was 

being  borne  towards  us  at  a  high  rate  of 
speed.  The  pale  sheet  of  the  sky  held  him 
in  silhouette  for  an  instant,  and  then  he 
flung  down  upon  us  in  a  perfect  flood  of 
invective . 

I    had    never   heard    him   talk    quite    like 


86  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

that  before.  It  was  really,  and  almost 
literally,  illuminating,  and  we  reined  aside 
in  a  sort  of  reverential  awe  to  let  him  pass. 
He  did  so  on  the  wings  of  some  of  the 
most  golden  eloquence  that  it  has  ever 
been  my  lot  to  hear.  "  Goddam  !  "  I  heard 
distinctly,  followed  by  a  string  of  words 
which  I  do  not  know  how  to  spell ;  and 
then  some  fine  but  strictly  censorable 
phrases,  out  of  which  I  collected  frag- 
ments that  made  a  disconnected  yet  in- 
teresting whole.  In  this  I  was  puzzled 
for  some  moments  by  the  many  variations 
of  the  word  camel.  *'  Camel  I  "  1  found 
myself  saying,  '*  camel  !  "  when  "  Look  !  " 
said  the  other  man  suddenly,  and  I  looked, 
and   saw    striding   down   upon  us   from   the 

same  pale  sheet  of  sky  that  had  held  T 

only  a  few  minutes  before  three  gaunt, 
long-legged  shadows, 

"  The  camels  !  "  said  the  other  man,  and 
I  looked  at  him,  and  he  looked  at  me, 
and  what  there  was  in  that  shrouding  dark- 
ness to  tell  each  what  the  other  thought  I 
do  not  know ;  but,  as  our  frenzied  horses 
waltzed  and  plunged  away  from  the  acrid 
fear  behind  them,  we  clung  to  our  saddles 
with   both   hands,    and   rocked  and   choked 


SIGHTS   AND    SMELLS  Zy 

with    insane     laughter.       Later,     when    we 

met  T ,   leading  a  dead-lame  pony  out 

of  the  rocks,  we  broke  out  afresh,  and 
between  paroxysms,  told  him  something  of 
our  admiring  respect.  Indeed,  a  man  who 
could  steer  a  madly  racing  pony  through 
pitch  darkness  and  over  and  between  rocks, 
and  at  the  same  time  conduct  ably  a 
rhetorical  discourse  on  the  (presumed)  ille- 
gitimacy of  cam'els  and  the  moral  de- 
gener'acy  of  men  who  ride  upon  them,  well 
deserved  some  more  tangible  expression  of 
merit  than  was  held  in  mere  words.  Iron 
crosses  have  been  given  for  less. 

The  remainder  of  that  ride  left  to  us 
only  recurring  fits  of  laughter,  dust,  and 
noise  and  darkness,  and  when  the  camels 
came  too  near,  which,  in  spite  of  concise 
injunctions  to  them  to  go  '*  to  another 
place,"  they  often  did,  spasms  of  wrathful 
and  sulphurous  abuse. 

A  note  in  my  diary  says  of  our  return 
to  Luderitzbucht :  "  Surprised  to  find  myself 
looking  on  the  beastly  place  as   *  home  '  !  " 

But  was  there  real  cause  for  surprise? 


CHAPTER    V 
ALARUMS   AND   EXCURSIONS 

Never,  I  believe,  was  there  a  campaign  so 
casually  regarded  by  an  army  as  was  the 
G.S.W.  "  affair  "  by  the  force  that  operated 
from  Luderitzbucht . 

Even  in  the  first  flush  of  our  landing  on 
German  territory  we  looked  upon  it  as  merely 
a  stepping-stone  to  the  larger  issue  in 
Europe .  For  that  we  had  volunteered .  This 
was  merely  an  irksome  little  duty  to  be  per- 
formed en  passant,  a  sort  of  preliminary 
canter  to  the  race  into  Berlin.  We  believed 
that  we  were  going  to  polish  off  the  local 
brand  of  Hun  in  three  or,  at  most,  four 
months,  and  then,  if  we  were  not  too  late 
— and  at  that  time  we  half  feared  that  we 
might  be — we  would  join  in  the  scamper 
across  the  Rhine,  or  help  to  capture  the 
"  German  High  Canal  Fleet "  from  the 
land. 

Some  of  the  more  imaginative  of  us,  in- 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS     89 

deed,  went  to  some  pains  to  draft  a  sort  of 
Cook's  tour  of  the  war.  From  G.S.W.  we 
would  go  on  to  German  East  Africa.  Egypt 
and  the  Dardanelles  would  follow,  and  then 
— mere  geography  being  sacrificed  on  the 
altar  of  our  splendid  optimism — we  would 
enter  Galicia  from  the  south-east — or  was  it 
the  north-west  ?— where  General  Botha  would 
assume  supreme  command  of  a  mixed  force 
of  I.L.H.  and  Cossacks,  whom  he  would 
lead  through  Austria  to  the  inevitable 
Berlin. 

For  most  of  this  the  corporal  who  was 
known  as  "  O.C.  Camels  "  was  responsible. 
Time  hung  heavily  on  his  hands,  and  at 
such  odd  moments  as  he  could  tear  himself 
away  from  his  smellful  charges  he  would 
come  to  tell  us  that  he  had  "  just  over- 
heard the  Colonel  saying ,"  or  "  a  ship 

has  just  come  in,  and  the  chief  engineer, 
whom  I  knew  some  years  ago  at  Dar-es- 
Salaam  "  (of  lavish  mendacity  was  the  'O.C. 

Camels  '),  "  and  he  tells  me  that ."    And 

then  would  follow  some  wildly  improbable 
yarn,  told  with  such  earnest  conviction  that 
at  least  one -third  of  the  squadron  existed 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  readiness  to  join 
Shackleton's  South  Pole  expedition  so  as  to 


90  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

"  go  round  the  other  way,  and  attack  the 
Germans  from  behind,"  or  to  crawl  to 
Windhuk  on  their  hands  and  knees  in  the 
guise  of  a  flock  of  sand -rats,  or  something 
else  equally  feasible. 

At  this  time  our  chief  grievance  against 
the  "  authorities  "  (vague  term  embracing 
everything  from  the  mismanagement  of  sand- 
storms to  the  shortage  in  the  rum -issue)  was 
that  they  never  took  us  into  their  confidence 
regarding  the  conduct  of  the  campaign.  We 
were  never  told,  for  instance,  when  we  got 
the  order  to  '*  saddle  up  "  whether  we  were 
destined  for  a  mere  patrol,  or  whether  the 
long-looked  for  general  advance  had  at  last 
begun,  or  whether  it  was  only  another 
**  surprise  alarm."  One  deplorable  result  of 
this  was  that  a  man  might  just  as  easily 
forget  his  rifle  when  starting  on  an  expedi- 
tion as  not.  Indeed,  we  had  an  example  of 
that  on  the  day  that  we  landed  at  Luderitz- 
bucht.  I  had  noticed  one  of  our  sergeants 
looking  a  little  more  imposing  than  usual .  A 
sort  of  forced  dignity  sat  heavily  upon  him, 
and  I  was  wondering  as  to  the  reason  when 
there  came  to  us  an  oflicer,  who  looked  him 
up  and  down,  as  one  man  of  fashion  may 
quiz  another  who  is  without  his  cane  or  his 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS     91 

gloves,  or  whose  trousers  are  without  their 

customary   crease.      '*  Sergeant   L ,"    he 

said,  **  where  is  your  rifle?  "  A  flush  crept 
up  the  sergeant's  sun -tanned  neck,  and  his 
ears  glowed  hotly :  "  Please,  sir,  I  left  it 
on  the  ship,  sir  !  " 

And  that  on  the  first  day  of  all  !  Small 
wonder^  then,  that  we  never,  from  first  to 
last,  learned  to  regard  war  as  other  than  a 
somewhat  unoomfortable  pastime. 

Thus  when,  on  the  4th  of  October,  the 
smallest  of  the  small  hours  saw  us  being 
coerced  from  our  blankets  by  the  official  toe 
of  the  corporal  of  the  guard,  we  merely 
smothered  him  under  a  cloud  of  profanity, 
and  turned  over  and  tried  to  get  to  sleep 
again.  But  it  was  of  no  avail.  He  emerged 
again,  pawing  his  way  through  the  veil  of 
obscenities,  blindly,  like  a  man  who  has  been 
*'  gassed,"  and  tempted  us  anew  with  the 
news  that  the  Germans  were  even  then  sur- 
rounding the  camp.  We  listened  patiently 
until  he  had  finished,  and  then  some  one 
told  him  with  a  wealth  of  lurid  detail  that 
there  weren't  any  Germans  in  the  country. 
**  There  were  five  originally — and  a  little 
yellow  dog,"  the  voice  went  on  to  say,  "  but 
we  bagged  the  five  at  Grasplatz,  and  if  you 


92  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

think  you're  going  to  get  me  up  at  this  time 
o'  night  to  chase  after  a  Goddam  poodle, 
you're  mistaken  I  " 

I  do  not  know  who  invented  the  "  little 
yellow  dog."  He  was  always  with  us.  Like 
the  "  Brer  Rabbit  "  of  the  American  negroes, 
he  is  a  fable — the  fable  of  "  D  "  Squadron 
I.L.H. 

But  we  knew  that  it  was  of  no  use,  and 
within  ten  minutes  we  were  flinging  saddles 
on  our  astonished  horses.  I  do  not  think 
that  we  altogether  believed  the  story  about 
the  Germans  ;  but  while  there  is  any  sort 
of  hope  there  is  no  "  grousing,"  and  it  was 
a  moderately  contented  body  of  men  that 
rode  out  into  the  first  paleness  of  the  coming 
day. 

A  brief  half -hour  later  we  were  completely 
undeceived.  Our  troop  leader  halted  us  at 
the  beginning  of  the  gorge  through  which 
runs  the  railway  line  to  Kolmanskuppe,  and 
told  us  with  a  bluntness  of  speech  and  a 
total  lack  of  consideration  for  our  feelings 
which  showed  that  he,  too,  regretted  his 
blankets,  that  we  were  to  "  guard  the  kopjes 
along  the  railway  line."  "What  for?"  I 
wondered,  as  I  gazed  up  at  the  crags  that 
cut  blackly   into   the   growing  light   behind 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS     93 

them.  As  far  as  I  could  see,  they  looked 
eminently  capable  of  guarding  themselves. 
'*  At  about  nine  o'clock,"  the  O.C.  went  on 
to  say. — it  was  then  about  three  o'clock,  by 
the  way,  and  most  infernally  cold — '*  a,  water- 
trolley  will  pass  on  its  Way  to  Kolmanskuppe . 
At  about  five  this  evening,  it  will  return. 
Until  then  no  man  is  to  leave  his  post,  unless 
dam -well  ordered  to  !  " 

For  this,  then,  we  had  forsaken  our 
blankets  in  the  middle  of  the  night ;  for 
this  we  had  burdened  ourselves  with  much 
extra  ammunition  and  tins  of  bully-beef  and 
jam.      ''  Told  you  there  wasn't  a  bloomin' 

German  in  the country  !  "  said  the  voice 

that  I  had  heard  earlier  ;  but  this  was  when 
my  section  was  dragging  its  horses  up  the 
scarred,  rock-strewn  flank  of  the  hill  that 
we  were  to  guard,  and  the  O.C.  was  away 
out  of  earshot,  posting  other  sections  on 
other  hills. 

There  is  little  to  be  said  of  that  first 
day  spent  on  the  hills.  Recollection  blends 
it  confusedly  with  the  memories  of  many 
other  day^  spent  in  a  like  manner.  For 
the  first  hour  or  so,  I  remember,  when  the 
hills  swam  in  the  pure  light,  when  the  air 
was    good    to   breathe    and   tobacco    was    a 


94  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

God's  gift,  our  watch  was  pleasant  enough  ; 
later,  when  the  shade  went  and  the  flies 
came,  and  the  rocks  whereon  we  lay  or 
sat  grew  so  uncomfortably,  hot  that  it  was 
impossible  to  remain  for  long  in  any  one 
position,  and  the  writer  even  went  to  the 
length  of  pillowing  his  head  on  a  nosebag 
and  trying  to  sleep  in  the  shadow  of  his 
horse,  until  the  poor,  fly-pestered  beast  tried 
to  dance  on  him,  and  he  got  frightened 
and  ran  away ;  when  the  landscape  rose  on 
its  hind -legs  and  waltzed  in  the  shimmering 
heat,  and  our  bully-beef  resolved  itself  into 
a  horrid  mess  of  sinew  and  mystery  floating 
in  yellow  grease — then  the  four  of  us,  who 
liked  each  other  well  enough  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  forbore  all  conversation,  be- 
cause it  was  too  hot  to  swear,  and  sat  and 
shied  chips  of  granite  at  venturesome  black 
lizards  until  the  shadows  came  again,  and 
brought  with  them  a  hellish  discord  of 
shouting  and  cracking  of  whips,  which  was 
the  water -trolleys,  and  our  signal  to  go 
home . 

It  was  upon  our  return  to  camp  on  this 
day  that  we  were  told  that  the  R.L.I, 
pickets  had  shot  two  Germans  who  had 
attempted    to    sneak   into   Luderitzbucht   on 


ALARUMS   AND   EXCURSIONS     95 

the  previous  night,  but,  generally  speaking, 
the  diary  which  I  kept  at  this  time  shows 
in  its  almost  discourteous  brevity  some- 
thing of  the  boredom  of  manner  with 
which  we  regarded  the  campaign  in 
general . 

"October  14-15-16,"  an  entry  reads. 
"  Camp.  Sand  and  flies  in  equal  parts  !  " 
An  entire  page  of  it  is  given  up  to  a 
description  of  a  snake  and  lizard  fight  which 
was  witnessed  on  one  of  our  kopje -guarding 
expeditions,  and  October  1 1  is  marked  down 
as  having  been  chiefly  remarkable  for  a 
"  stand  to  arms  "  that  was  suffered  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  because  an  enthusiastic 
sentry  of  the  Pretoria  Regiment  mistook 
the  rising  moon  for  an  enemy  bonfire 
or  something  of  the  sort,  and  tried  to 
shoot  it. 

During  the  latter  half  of  October  it  be- 
came general  knowledge  that  information 
was  leaking  out  to  the  enemy.  Certain 
houses,  wherein  dwelt  Germans  "  on  good 
behaviour,"  I  know,  were  being  watched. 
One  of  these  "  ticket -of -leave  "  Huns,  I 
remember,  had  been  retained  by  the  authori- 
ties as  a  sort  of  sanitary  inspector.  He 
was    a     weird  -  looking    little    person    with 


96  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

spectacles,  and  he  used  to  ride  about  the 
town  on  a  horse  several  sizes  too  large  for 
him.  One  day^  he  was  gone,  and  his 
place  was  filled  by  a  rumour  that  told  how 
he  had  been  sent  to  Cape  Town  to  be 
executed  as  a  spy.  Whether  this  was  true 
or  not  I  am  in  no  wise  prepared  to  say, 
but  anyway  the  mere  story  gave  our  sentries 
such  a  zest  for  their  work  that  the  R.L.I, 
succeeded  on  the  same  night  in  seriously 
wounding  one  of  their  own  officers  who  was 
"  visiting  rounds." 

At  evening  stables  on  October  17th — a 
day  which  only  narrowly  escaped  being 
bracketed  with  the  "  sand  and  flies  "  entry 
of  the  previous  three — we  were  told  to  draw 
our  next  day's  rations  in  advance,  and  to 
see  that  our  water-bottles  were  filled.  Not 
a  word  was  said  to  us  of  any  kind  of 
movement  toward.  "  Ours  not  to  reason 
why,"  nor  even  to  suspect,  and  that,  I 
suppose,  was  why  an  hour  after  dark  found 
us  with  our  horses  saddled,  waiting  for 
the  "  surprise."  We  took  leave  to  presume, 
with  that  fluent  pessimism  which  marks 
the  really  good  soldier^  that  it  was  going 
to  be  another  attack  on  "  poor  old  Fort 
Grasplatz."      (Up  to  then  we  had  captured 


ALARUMS    AND    EXCURSIONS     97 

that  historic  place  on  no  fewer  than  four 
separate  occasions,  and  we  were  getting 
rather  tired  of  it.)  But  when  we  were 
formally  paraded,  and  told  that  the  Natal 
Carbineers  were  to  accompaJi,y  us,  or  rather, 
seeing  that  they  were  the  senior  regiment, 
that  we  were  to  accompany  them,  we  were 
quietly  uplifted  among  ourselves,  and  looked 
forward  to  a  new  venture. 

Nor  were  we  altogether  disappointed. 
We  were  told  that  our  objective  was  a 
night  march  on  a  place  called  Elizabeth- 
bucht,  where  was  a  military  post  which  we 
were  to  attack  at  dawn.  From  there  we 
were  to  return  in  extended  formation — 
with  the  four  squadrons  of  Carbineers  we 
would  be  able  to  cover  a  sweep  of  from 
ten  to  twelve  miles  of  ground — to  thoroughly 
"  drive  "  the  country  back  in  the  direction 
of  Luderitzbucht,  and  to  snap  up  any 
German  patrols  that  might  be  caught  in 
our  net .  To  make  things  more  certain 
the  Transvaal  Scottish  were  going  to  move 
out  during  the  night  to  a  distance  of  some 
three  or  four  miles,  there  to  await  such 
stray  enemy  patrols  as  might  be  driven  on 
to  them. 

It    all    sounded    beautifully    simple,    and 

7 


98  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

although  things  did  not  turn  out  quite 
as  we  hoped,  without  that  alluring  pro- 
gramme before  us  we  could  not,  I  am  sure, 
have  sustained  so  cheerfully  the  night's 
work  that  was  to  be  ours.  It  was  bitterlyi 
cold.  A  knife -edged  wind  came  and  played 
with  us  among  the  rocks  wherein  we  rode, 
and  some  time  later,  when  we  had  forsaken 
the  hills  for  the  easier  going  of  the  sea 
beach  (Elizabethbucht,  which  is  some  fifteen 
miles  distant  from  Luderitzbucht,  is  on  the 
coast),  an  ice-cold  sea  mist  settled  about 
us  and  soaked  us  to  the  skin.  For  some 
five  miles  we  held  to  the  coast,  the  call  of 
sea  birds  in  our  ears  and  the  taste  of  salt 
on  our  lips.  Hills  grew  up  again  around 
us,  and  rocks  took  the  place  of  sand. 
All  sound  else  became  drowned  in  the  steady 
snarling  of  an  ebb  tide  that  sucked  over 
some  unseen  bar,  save  once,  when  there 
came  to  us  from  somewhere  out  of  the 
white -streaked  waters  a  sudden  noise  of 
jabbering,  like  old  men  in  heated  argument, 
and  Which  I  now  believe  was  a  colony  of 
black  seals,  but  which  then,  in  the  darkness 
and  the  uncertainty  of  the  night  and  our 
mission,  sounded  mightily  uncanny. 

At  what   hour  we   halted  and   "  ringed " 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS     99 

our  horses,  I  cannot  say.  The  sound  of 
the  sea  was  gone,  I  know,  and  with  it  the 
soaking  mist.  But  of  that  bivouac  there 
are  two  outstanding  memories,  each  as 
unforgettable  in  its  way.  as  the  other.  One 
was  the  spectacle,  which  struck  us  as  being 
funny,  of  Carbineer  officers  walking  about 
with  stable  lanterns  in  their  hands  looking 
for  comfortable  places  to  sleep  in,  and  the 
other  was  of  a  voice  that  spoke  to  me  out 
of  the  darkness,  bidding  me  to  sleep  with 
him  because  he  was  cold,  and,  when  II 
complied  with  the  request,  of  a  flask  of 
brandy  that  was  thrust  into  my  hands, 
with  a  whispered  injunction  not  to  thank 
him  **  quite  so  loudly,  because,  you  see, 
old  chap,  ours  is  a  very  thirsty  squadron, 
and  this   flask  is   so  little,   so  very  little  !  " 

Dear  old   M !  should  you  chance  to 

read  these  lines,  remember  that  if  my 
thanks  on  tliat  night  were  not  over- 
effusive,  and  if,  as  you  said,  I  did  drink 
rather  more  than  my  fair  share  of  the 
brandy,  at  least  my  gratitude  is  of  a 
lasting  nature. 

We  slept,  or  rather  pretended  to  sleep, 
under  the  lee  of  a  big  rock,  and  there 
grew  up   during  the  night,  and  stuck  into 


loo         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

my  ribs,  a  lesser  rock  which  I  tried  to 
uproot,  but  upon  which  I  broke  all  my 
finger-nails  instead,  and  my  stable  com- 
panion accused  me  of  ingratitude  and  of 
rowelling  him  with  my  spurs.  Dawn, 
however,  came  at  last,  and  the  order  to 
mount :  a  grey  dawn  that  showed  nothing 
of  the  coming  of  the  sun ;  just  a  spirit- 
less half-light  wherein  rocks  and  sand  and 
men  took  on  a  unifortn  dull  hue.  In  all 
that  landscape,  we  found  to  our  surprise, 
we  were  alone  save  for  a  squadron  of  car- 
bineers .  that  was  making  off  at  a  sharp 
trot  at  a  wide  angle  to  our  own  course. 
My  section  was  sent  ahead  to  a  distance  of 
some  four  or  five  hundred  yards  ;  flanking 
sections  cut  themselves  away  from  the 
squadron  and  galloped  out  until  they  were 
abreast  with  u,s  and  at  some  hundred  yards 
range,  and  we  started.  For  hours,  it 
seemed,  we  rode,  before  the  sun's  rim 
stepped  out  upon  thje  curtain  of  far  hills, 
and  yellow,  watery  light  quickened  our 
shivering  horses.  Sand  and  rocks  and 
scrub — we  were  to  meet  with  real  vegeta- 
tion, for  the  first  time,  later  on — scrub  and 
sand  and  rocks — a  wilderness  that  howled 
aloud. 


ALARUMS  AND   EXCURSION'S     ioi* 

For  slow  miles  the  changeless  horizon 
seemed  to  mock  our  progress.  Ridge  after 
ridge  of  rising  ground  promised  new  things 
and  gave  us  the  same  old  monotony — 
rocks  and  scrub  and  sand. 

It  must  have  been  nearly  eight  o'clock 
— we  had,  anyway,  for  some  time  been  dis- 
cussing the  breakfast  that  we  were  not  going 
to  get — when  a  sudden  dip  in  the  ground 
brought  to  our  view  a  collection  of  tin 
shanties  and  a  miscellany  of  diamond - 
working  plant.  The  whole  face  of  the  earth 
was  heaped  up  in  mounds  of  gravel  and 
sand,  and  between  the  mounds  were  hand- 
rotators  and  barrels  and  quaint  -  looking 
cylindrical  sieves.  The  squadron  halted 
while  we  went  forward  to  investigate. 
Crowds  of  pigeons  flew  about  us  as  I  dis- 
mounted at  the  first  open  door,  and  went 
inside  to  investigate.  A  half-eaten  meal, 
a  glass  with  the  dregs  of  beer  in  it,  and  a 
bed  unslept  in.  That  was  all.  The  second 
hut  told  the  same  story  of  a  hurried  de- 
parture, and  the  third,  and  the  next.  "No 
Germans  for  us  to-day,  my  boy  !  "  said  the 
man  who  had  held  my  horse.  "  Never  mind 
the  Germans,"  said  another ;  "  I've  found 
a  tin  of  pine-apple  !  " 


I02         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

Half  an  hour  or  so  later  the  hoofs  of 
our  horses  rang  sharply  on  the  metals  of 
a  narrow-gauge  railway  line  half-buried  in 
the  sand,  and  soon  afterwards  an  official - 
looking  tin  roof  grew  out  of  the  shoulder 
of  a  humpbacked  sand-dune. 

The  '*  military  post  "  which  we  were  to 
atta(^k  !  We  reined  in  and  looked  around. 
The  squadron  seemed  to  be  a  long  way 
behind,  and  we  were  only  four ;  but 
curiosity  is  a  more  impelling  factor  than 
mere  courage,  and  within  a  couple  of 
minutes  we  were  dismounted  before  a 
notice-board  which  told  us  in  official  black 
letters  that  this  was  the  Elizabethbucht 
police-station  !  Some  few  fowls  wandered 
in  and  out  of  the  open  door,  and  a  brace 
of  pigeons  were  flirting  on  the  rim  of  a 
chimney.  Military  post  !  Pshaw  !  this  was 
worse  than  Grasplatz  !  There  was  a  thud- 
ding of  hoofs  behind  us,  and  we  looked 
round  to  discover  the  Colonel's  galloper. 
'*  *  The  old  man,'  "  he  began,  his  eyes  not 
on  me,  but  on  the  doorway  of  the  station — 
"  *  the  old  man  '  says  ye've  got  to  go  and 
find  the  Carbineers  !  "  "  Where  are  they? 
Are  they  lost?"  I  asked,  faintly  sarcastic. 
*'  I   don't   know — an'    *  the   old   man  '   don't 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS    103 

know — if  they're  lost,  or  if  we're  lost,  but 
ye've  got  to  go  and  find  'em."  "  But  where 
are  they?  "  I  looked  away  to  the  barren 
horizon.  "  Don't  know,  I'm  sure,"  he  an- 
swered over  his  shoulder — he  had  dis- 
mounted and  was  stooping  to  the  low  porch 
of  the  building — "  but  *  the  old  man  '  says 
ye're  to   gallop  like   th'   divil  !  " 

I  got  into  my  saddle  thoughtfully.  Now, 
where  on  earth,  in  a  wilderness  of  sand- 
dunes  and  rocks,  might  one  reasonably 
expect  to  find  Carbineers  growing?  They 
were  not  behind  us,  certainly,  or  we  should 
have  seen  them.  That  left  three  cardinal 
points  of  the  compass  for  me  to  choose 
from.  To  the  left,  and  in  front,  unbroken 
sand-dunes  met  the  sky  in  an  ugly  straight 
line.  To  the  right,  a  glimpse  of  blue  sea 
showed  over  the  crest  of  some  sugar-loaf 
sand-hills.  That,  at  least,  looked  friendly, 
and  I  started  off  at  a  canter  through  the 
deep  sand. 

The  Carbineers,  I  knew,  might  just  as 
likely  as  not  be  in  either  of  the  other  two 
directions  that  I  had  discarded,  and  I 
might  be  riding  straight  into  the  Germans 
that  we  had  come  all  this  way  to  meet. 
It   was    on   the   heels   of   this    thought   that 


104        WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

I  realized,  with  something  of  a  shock,  that  I 
did  not  particularly  want  to  meet  them — 
just  then.  A  wide  valley  opened  up  before 
me,  and  I  held  straight  down  its  centre  in 
some  vague  hope,  I  believe,  that  I  might 
be  out  of  range  of  the  hills  on  each  side. 
It  was  not  only  the  thought  of  the  Germans 
that  was  bothering  me.  I  might — the  day 
of  miracles  not  yet  being  past — I  might 
even  meet  the  Carbineers  and  they  might 
mistake  me  for  a  German,  and  some  of 
them,  I  now  remembered  having  heard,  were 
rattling  good  shots. 

Even  ordinary  peaceable  citizens  in  or- 
dinary peaceable  times  have  been  known  to 
remark  on  the  extraordinary  resemblances 
that  one  sometimes  sees  in  rocks  to  men 
and  dogs,  and  even  to  cattle.  On  this  occa- 
sion I  saw  no  dogs  or  cattle,  but  I  saw 
dozens  of  men,  all  unmistakably  Germans, 
and  all  in  lethal  attitudes.  Of  course  they 
were  only  rocks,  and  I  kept  persuading 
myself  of  the  fact,  but  once,  I  remember, 
when  a  prone  grey  figure  that  I  had  been 
watching  for  some  half -minute  or  so  seemed 
ever  so  slightly  to  change  its  position,  and 
the  next  instant  I  heard  a  twanging  rush 
through   the  air  above  my  head,    I   ducked 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS    105 

on  to  my  horse's  neck  and  wondered  for 
a  moment  where  I  was  hit.  On  the  next 
instant  I  looked  back  to  find  that  a  line 
of  telegraph-poles  had  crossed  my;  path  and 
it  was  the  wind  in  the  low -hung  wires  that 
I  had  heard. 

The  valley  down  which  I  rode  opened 
out  into  a  waste  of  sand,  and  I  became 
aware  of  a  string  of  horsemen  moving 
diagonally  across  my  front.  I  cantered  on 
for  a  few  hundred  yards,  and  watched 
them  while  they  halted  and  faced  round  in 
my  direction.  It  was  impossible  at  that 
distance— fifteen  hundred  yards  at  the  very 
least — to  tell  whether  they  were  Carbineers 
or  not,  and  as  I  moved  forward  I  held  out 
my  hat  in  my  right  hand.  This  was  the 
signal  by  which  we  were  to  distinguish 
friends  from  foes,  and  I  waited  anxiously 
for  its  acknowledgment  and  return.  One 
—two— three  hundred  yards  slipped  past,  and 
still  they  made  no  sign.  Four  hundred  ! 
This  was  getting  serious,  and  I  reined  in 
to  a  walk.  Five  hundred  !  Ah  !  there  it 
was  !  A  man  had  ridden  clear  of  the  others, 
and— blessed  sight  !— he  was  giving  the  "  All 
right  "  signal. 

A    few    minutes    later    I    was    explaining 


io6         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

myself    to    an    officer.      "  Colonel    D ^n's 

compliments,  sir  !  "—and  here,  since  the 
galloper  who  had  sent  me  on  that  wild 
ride  had  not  told  me  what  "  the  old  man  " 
wanted  with  the  Carbineers,  I  plunged 
recklessly—*'  and  will  you  be  so  good  as 
to  link  up  with  him,  and— and  commence 
the  drive." 

The  end  of  my  speech  sounded  lame  in 
my  own  ears,  but  it  seemed  to  be  what  the 
Carbineer  officer  wanted.  "  Right  !  "  he 
said,  "  and  where  precisely,  in  all  this  large 

country,  might  Colonel  D n  be  found?" 

I  indicated,  vaguely,  the  desert  whence  I 
had  come  ;  a  whistle  blew  shrilly,  and  the 
wide-strung  line  of  horsemen  wheeled  half- 
right  to  the  signal  that  followed,  and  we 
moved  on  again.  Far  below  us,  and  to  our 
left,  the  still  waters  of  Elizabeth's  Bay— as 
the  new  maps  know  it— winked  in  the  sun- 
light, and  a  cluster  of  some  half-dozen  tin 
sheds  stood  out  in  clear  relief  against  the 
white  sand  of  its  beach. 

Nearer  still,  and  running  parallel  with 
our  course,  was  the  narrow-gauge  railway 
that  we  had  met  earlier  in  the  morning. 
A  mule -drawn  trolley,  guarded  by  some 
half-dozen  horsemen,  provided  the  only  life 


ALARUMS   AND   EXCURSIONS    107 

in  the  picture.  ''What's  that?"  I  asked 
of  a  trooper  who  was  riding  next  to  me. 
"  Prisoners  !  "  he  replied,  and,  seeing  my 
surprise,  added :  "  Non-combatants,  of 
course;  diamond-diggers,  or  something. 
One  of  'em's  a  woman  "—he  paused  and 
chuckled.  "  She  came  out  o'  one  o'  the  huts 
with  a  flutter  like  a  lot  o'  hens  when  we 
surrounded  'em  this  morning,  an'— well,  it 
was  very  early,  y'  know,  an'  old  Stick-in-the- 
mud  "—he  indicated  an  officer  who  was 
riding  slightly  in  advance  of  us—"  he  made 
us  right-about  while  she  collected  herself." 
He  paused  again,  and  looked  ruminatingly 
at  the  officer -man.  "  I  never  seen  'im  blush 
before  !  "  he  concluded. 

A  group  of  specks  appeared  on  a  far 
ridge.  "Are  those  your  fellows?"  "Stick- 
in-the-mud  "  had  called  out  to  me  over  his 
shoulder.  "  Yes,  sir,"  I  answered  unhesi- 
tatingly, although,  as  far  as  I  could  tell  at 
that  distance,  they  were  just  as  likely  to 
be  Germans.  I  was  right,  however,  and 
within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  was  back  in 
my  own  section. 

From  this  time  onward  we  did  not  seri- 
ously entertain  any  hope  of  meeting  the 
enemy.      Too    obviously   they   had    received 


io8         WITH    BOTHA^S   ARMY 

wind  of  our  coming,  and  as  the  affair 
seemed  destined  to  resolve  itself  into  a 
picnic— well,  we  would  treat  it  as  a  picnic  ! 
Thereafter,  although  we  kept  to  our  extended 
formation  when  the  nature  of  the  country 
allowed  us  to  do  so,  save  once,  when  the 
nearness  of  the  sea  tempted  us  from  all 
semblance  of  military  virtue,  and  we  rode 
our  horses  into  the  breakers,  we  treated 
the  whole  affair  as  schoolboys  treat  a  half- 
holiday. 

For  an  hour  or  more  we  rode  in  the 
shadow  of  great  hills,  or  picked  a  careful 
way  down  deep  gorges,  where  bushes- 
actual  bushes,  with  green  leaves  on  them— 
brushed  our  horses'  bellies,  and  clouds  of 
yellow  and  white  butterflies  danced  mazily 
away  from  the  disturbance. 

Hares  were  numerous  here,  and  once  a 
species  of  buck— a  rhe-bok,  I  think  it  was 
—jinked  away  among  the  strewn  boulders, 
and  once,  again,  I  saw  a  man  dismount  to 
put  his  heel  on  the  ugly,  squat  head  of  a 
puff-adder. 

Somewhere  about  midday,  when,  by  dint 
of  sheer  ingenuity,  we  had  managed  to 
interpose  a  small  ridge  of  hills  between 
ourselves  and  the  rest  of  the  squadron,  my 


ALARUMS   AND    EXCURSIONS    109 

section  spread  themselves  sumptuously  over 
a  repast  of  tinned  pineapple  and  cold  tea 
and  bully -beef  that  was  sufficiently  melted  to 
be  impossible  as  bully -beef,  but  just  toler- 
able, when  spread  on  dry  ship's  biscuit,  as 
a  sort  of  butter. 

When  eventually  we  rejoined  the  squad- 
ron, we  found  that  our  subterfuge  had 
really  been  unnecessary,  as  they,  too,  had 
lunched  ;  but  then,  I  do  not  suppose  that 
we  should  have  enjoyed  our  meal  one  half 
as  much  if  we  had  eaten  it  honestly. 

During  the  afternoon  the  hills  disappeared 
and  a  field  of  sand-dunes  spread  itself 
across  the  face  of  the  country  and  drove 
us  to  the  easier  going  of  the  sea -beach. 
The  Carbineers  had  gone  from  us— we 
vaguely  understood  that  we  were  still  in 
touch  with  them,  but  where  or  how  we 
did  not  greatly  care— and  we  idled  along 
in  perfect  contentment  of  mind.  Our  path 
was  hemmed  with  beauty  on  that  afternoon. 
Pink-hued  flamingoes  gemmed  the  sand- 
banks ;  from  the  rocky  islets  whereon  they 
drowsed  black  seals  lifted  inquisitive  snouts 
to  our  passing,  and  now  and  again  our  horses 
would  snort  uneasily  at  the  bleached  skeleton 
of  some  immense  whale. 


no  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

Somehow,  in  G.S.W.,  landscape  follows 
landscape  with  the  abruptness  of  stage 
scenery,  and  when,  suddenly,  the  coast- 
line curved  away  from  us,  a  hundred  yards 
or  so  of  heavy  progress  through  a  tongue 
of  the  dune-field,  brought  us  to  a  wilder- 
ness of  small  granite  hills.  As  a  background 
to  these  again  were  the  larger  hills,  behind 
which,  we  knew,  was  Luderitzbucht. 

A  nearer  sky-line  became  peopled  with 
specks.  One  of  them  was  waving  a  flag, 
but  no  one  of  my  section  understood  the 
morse  code,  and  we  lost  the  message. 
The  specks  were  the  signalling  section  of 
the  Transvaal  Scottish,  and  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  later  our  horses  were  snorting  and 
shying  at  kilted  apparitions  that  arose  upon 
all  sides  of  us  from  the  bare  sand. 

These,  too,  were  the  Transvaal  Scottish, 
and  I  think  that  we  gained  a  new  respect 
for  them  on  the  spot.  That  a  half -company 
of  men— and  I  counted  at  least  fifty  of  them 
—could  lie  in  the  path  of  a  body  of  mounted 
troops  and  remain  absolutely  undetected 
until  the  horses  were  almost  literally  on  top 
of  them,  was  a  lesson  in  the  practical  value 
of  taking  cover  that  is  not  easy  to  forget. 

**  How  long  have  you  been  lying  there?" 


ALARUMS    AND    EXCURSIONS    iii 

I  asked  of  one.  "  Since  about  three  o'clock 
this  morning,"  he  replied.  I  looked  at  the 
glowing  sunset  behind  us,  and  proffered  him 
my  tobacco  pouch— the  only  sign  of  respect 
within  my  power  at  that  moment. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A   NIGHT   RIDE,   AND   AFTER 

A  MILE-LONG  tunnel  of  dust  roofed  with 
dim  starlight. 

That  is  really  all  the  story  of  a  night  ride 
through  the  desert  lands  of  German  South- 
West  Africa. 

There  are  other  things  of  course  :  hills 
that  rim  the  vague  earth  round,  showing 
like  so  many  dark  gaps  cut  out  of  the 
night ;  the  sullen  murmur  of  the  sands  ;  the 
brief  outcry  of  bare  rock  overpassed  ;  the 
wheezing  of  sand -choked  horses  ;  but  all, 
muffled  sight  and  muffled  sound  alike,  are 
just  vague  impressions  sensed  rather  than 
seen  and  heard. 

Be  your  company  one  thousand  men  or 
but  one  score,  you  are  aware  only  of  those 
just  ahead  of  you  and  of  some  few  that 
follow  after.  Beyond  the  range  of  a  mur- 
mured curse— and  night  service  in  an  enemy 
country  does  not  permit  of  emphatic  bias- 


A    NIGHT    RIDE,   AND   AFTER     113 

phemy— is  the  barrier  of  dust  and  night. 
Only  when  the  way  lies  over  hills,  and 
you  may  look  down  and  see  the  dark  snake 
of  the  column  writhe  out  upon  the  pale 
sands  below,  or  watch  the  constant  firefly 
flicker  that  tells  of  stress  of  steel-shod  hoof 
and  naked  granite,  may  you  gain  the 
peculiar  courage  of  numbers.  When  you 
are  in  the  desert  proper,  and  the  white  sand 
lifts  its  curtain  about  you,  you  can  be,  almost 
dreadfully,  alone. 

There  are  incidents,  too.  The  dismounted 
group  that  you  pass,  bending  to  the  prone 
figure  whose  horse,  perhaps,  has  fallen  with 
him  ;  the  halt  while  some  unsuspected  scout 
rides  in  to  report  what  you,  gentlemen  of 
the  rank  and  file,  will  never  learn  ;  the  low- 
voiced  "  Non-commissioned  officers  !  "  and 
the  group  which  forms  to  listen  to  orders 
that  you  strain  your  ears  to  catch  ;  the  order 
to  mount,  and  the  undertone  of  laughter  at 
the  plight  of  some  unfortunate  whose  horse 
"objects."  Forgotten  as  soon  as  passed, 
it  will  be  days  before  memory  can  shuffle 
these  happenings  into  any  sort  of  order, 
and  weeks,  sometimes,  before  they  can  be 
told. 

On  Octo-ber  22nd  was  just  such  an  ex- 
S 


114  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

perience.  We  were  paraded  at  dusk,  and 
after  the  usual  harangue  on  the  uncomfort- 
able punishment  which  would  be  ours  if 
we  talked  above  a  whisper,  or  so  far  forgot 
ourselves  as  to  strike  a  match,  we  rode 
down  to  the  Natal  Carbineers'  lines,  and 
waited  :  waited  while  the  men  from  Natal 
asserted  their  regimental  seniority  and  rode 
away  ahead  of  us ;  waited  while  some 
ambitious  water-carts  that  had  got  mixed 
up  with  the  advance  were  brought  back 
again ;  waited  while  a  troop  of  the  Rand 
Intelligence  Corps— the  "  Rest  In  Com- 
forts "  of  our  own  strictly  unofficial  Army 
List— were  tacked  on  to  the  tail  of  the 
column ;  waited  while  some  wagons  that 
had  got  lost  were  found  ;  and  finally,  when 
patience  had  worn  very  thin  indeed,  were 
permitted  to  move  off  into  the  dust -choked 
darkness  of  another  unknown  quest. 

When  hope  runs  high,  things  little  in 
themselves  assume  enormous  proportions, 
and  the  wagons  and  water-carts  were  to  us 
on  this  occasion  what  a  straw  is  said  to  be 
to  a  drowning  man.  And  we  were  drown- 
ing, drowning  in  a  sea  of  despondency. 
A  month  of  unremitting  sandstorm,  relieved, 
if  that  be  the  expression,  by  three  or  four 


A    NIGHT   RIDE,   AND   AFTER     115 

hopelessly  blank  expeditions,  had  reduced 
us  to  the  condition,  almost,  of  believing  that 
there  really  were  no  Germans  in  the  country. 
And  now  we  were  being  sent  out  with  water- 
carts  and  wagons.  We  had  never  had  them 
before  ;  therefore— our  logic  will  not,  per- 
haps be  altogether  clear  to  any  one  who  has 
not  experienced  similar  hopes  and  fears— 
therefore  there  must  be  Germans  at  the  end 
of  our  journey. 

Where,  before,  we  had  ridden  all  through 
the  night,  only,  apparently,  for  the  pleasure 
of  riding  back  again  on  the  following  day, 
midnight,  on  this  occasion,  found  us  at 
Kolmanskuppe  being  guided  by  drowsy  in- 
fantry pickets  to  horse -lines  already  pre- 
pared for  us.  This  in  itself  was  surprising, 
but  the  horse -lines  were  infinitely  more  so. 
**  'Orse  lines? — bloomln'  clothes-lines  !  "  I 
heard  a  scornful  voice  say.  Poles,  festooned 
with  slackly  hung  wires — and  these  at  an 
average  height  of  about  six  feet—did,  cer- 
tainly, give  to  the  place  the  respectable  air 
of  a  laundry  aniiexe,  but  they  were  better 
than  nothing,  anyway.  We  hung  up  our 
horses  as  best  we  could,  and  went  to  sleep 
in  our  spurs. 

There  is  an  art  in  sleeping  in  the  sands. 


ii6  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

We  had  long  since  discovered,  for  instance, 
that  however  cold  the  night,  the  sand  held 
always  something  of  the  sun's  warmth,  and 
we  used  to  scoop  out  hollows  to  the  depth 
of  six  inches  or  so  to  sleep  in.  Usually, 
after  half  an  hour  or  less,  warmth  and 
grace  alike  would  depart  from  us,  and  we 
would  be  driven  to  further  finger-stubbing 
searches  after  warm  beds.  A  wakeful  night, 
indeed,  would  often  present  a  weird  spec- 
tacle. Dark  forms,  heralding  their  uprising 
by  soft  curses,  would  emerge  at  intervals 
from  the  silent  sands  around,  crawl  on  hands 
and  knees  for  some  few  yards,  burrow 
vigorously  for  a  while,  and  then  drop  with 
a  grunt  into  temporary  silence. 

I  remember  one  occasion,  when  I  slept 
with  three  or  four  others  in  a  pit  of  our 
own  digging,  and  was  afterwards  profoundly 
grateful  to  the  bitter  cold  which  had  driven 
us  to  the  expedient.  During  the  night  I 
awoke  once  or  twice  to  a  half -consciousness 
of  a  growing  wind,  and  of  some  weight  of 
sand  upon  rrfy  blankets  that  was  not  there 
when  I  turned  in.  "  There'll  be  a  proper 
sandstorm  to-morrow,"  a  sleepy  voice  had 
said,  and  I  remembered  afterwards  how 
casual  had  been  my  agreement. 


A   NIGHT    RIDE,    AND   AFTER     117 

Dawn,  on  that  morning,  came  in  with  a 
shout.  There  was  a  clanging  of  iron,  a 
sound  of  devils'  anvil  play,  and,  with  the 
realization,  the  swift  onrush  of  some  great 
thing  that  loomed  upon  us  out  of  the  sand- 
haze.  I  was  sitting  up  trying  to  clear  my 
eyes  of  caked  sand,  but  instinct,  or  some- 
thing quicker  than  myself,  flung  me  down, 
and  the  same  instant  was  filled  with  huge 
sound,  and  a  hint,  just  a  hint — nothing  more 
—of  tremendous  pressure.  When  it  had 
passed  I  sat  up  again  to  stare  at  the  retreat- 
ing form  of  a  cylindrical  water-tank  which 
had  bowled  over  us  where  we  lay. 

I  have  no  idea  of  the  weight  of  that  tank. 
It  measured,  I  should  say,  not  less  than 
twelve  feet  by  five,  and  the  wind  which  was 
chasing  it  across  the  territory  was  also 
whirling  sand -drift  before  it  at  an  easy 
sixty  miles  an  hour.  We  were  considerably 
impressed,  and  went  to  some  pains  after- 
wards to  measure  the  inches  of  our  escape. 
Our  "  surface -lines,"  we  gathered,  must,  on 
the  average,  have  been  just  about  flush  with 
the  desert's  face.  I  say  "on  the  average," 
because  one  man  there  was  of  our  party 
who  spent  a  not  inconsiderable  portion  of 
the   ensuing   week   in   nursing  a   knee   that 


ii8  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

had    omitted    to    take    cover    with    the    rest 
of  him. 

The  first  half -hour  or  so  of  that  morning 
presented  an  amazing  spectacle.  For  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  was  nothing  but 
sand  and  the  savage  wind,  but  at  intervals 
the  booming  sound  that  had  first  awakened 
us  would  herald  the  passing  of  other  water- 
tanks.  Where  they  came  from  I  know  not, 
nor  can  I  hazard  any  guess  as  to  where 
they  were  going.  They  simply  loomed  out 
of  the  sandstorm  to  come,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  were  whirled  into  the  yellow  fog  of 
sandstorm  past,  on  the  other.  Later,  when 
we  had  removed  ourselves  and  such  of  our 
belongings  as  we  could  find  to  the  com- 
parative shelter  of  a  line  of  railway  trucks, 
we  saw  one  of  these  cylinders  trundling 
merrily  along  at  an  undreamed  of  pace. 
*'  Wonder  how  it's  going  to  take  the  railway 
line,"  some  one  asked,  and  we  watched 
breathlessly.  At  some  hundred  yards  or  so 
short  of  the  line  a  drift  of  sand  turned  it 
in  a  sudden,  savage  curve  in  our  direction, 
and  for  fifty  yards  or  so  it  skated  on  one 
screaming  rim  ;  but  the  wind  swung  it  plumb 
again,  and  its  shrill  clamour  became  a  deep 
grumble.     Crash!     The  three-foot  bank  on 


A    NIGHT    RIDE,    AND    AFTER     119 

which  the  metals  gleamed  seemed  to  jump 
out  to  kick  the  tank  high  into  the  air. 
For  an  appreciable  instant  it  floated,  and 
then  it  boomed  to  earth  again,  and  a  fresh 
wave  of  sandstorm  rose  to  its  impact,  and 
it  was  gone  from  us. 

Within  ten  seconds  we  were  making  for 
the  spot  where  it  had  landed.  Arrived 
there,  we  looked  at  each  other  in  silence, 
and  then  proceeded  solemnly  to  pace  off 
the  distance  from  the  point  where  it  had 
struck  the  bank.  When  we  had  done  so, 
we  remembered  the  earlier  visitor  who  had 
stepped  over  us  in  the  dawn,  and  we  looked 
at  each  other  again.  In  that  appreciable 
instant  during  which  the  tank,  looking  like 
some  snub-nosed  Zeppelin,  had  seemed  to 
float  in  the  air,  it  had  covered  twenty- 
seven  generous  yards. 

This  has  been  a  long  digression,  and  is 
only  pardonable  as  being  to  some  extent 
expressive  of  the  chaos  of  anecdote  which 
dwells  in  the  mind  of  the  average  sand- 
buffeted  sojourner  in  the  desert.  Let  him 
loose  on  one  story  concerning  sandstorms, 
and  he  will  strip  his  memory  of  all  the 
other  sandstorms  that  he  has  ever  seen  or 
heard  of  to  make  his  one  story  presentable. 


I20         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

Even  of  myself  I  can  say  that  I  find  it 
safe  to  write  of  things  that  happened  in 
that  campaign  only  when  I  have  my  diary 
propped  up  before  me. 

Dawn,  then,  on  that  October  23rd  to 
which  this  chronicle  must  confine  itself, 
found  us  half  blinded  by  just  such  a  sand- 
storm as  that  which  I  have  described.  There 
was  no  spectacular  display  of  water-tanks, 
but  the  sand-blast  was  so  pitiless  that  I  do 
not  think  we  should  have  minded  much  if 
the  whole  of  the  expeditionary  force's  roll- 
ing-stock had  rolled  down  upon  us.  We 
built  shelters — that  is  to  say  we  erected 
sheets  of  corrugated  iron,  borrowed  hastily 
from  the  buildings  on  the  heights  above  us, 
and  called  them  shelters.  We  built  them 
with  their  backs  to  the  searching  wind, 
roofed  them,  and  weighted  the  roofs  down 
with  large  stones,  but  some  law  of  vacuum 
that  we  never  quite  got  the  hang  of  made 
whirlwinds  in  our  doorways  and  drove  us 
finally  to  the  length  of  swaddling  our  faces 
in  cloth.  The  ostrich  of  the  fable,  who 
buried  his  head  in  the  sand,  was  not  such 
a  fool  as  our  wise  men  have  tried  to  paint 
him. 

Our  horses,  poor  beasts,  turned  their  backs 


A    NIGHT    RIDE,   AND   AFTER     121 

to  the  searing  blast,  and  were  grateful  to 
the  nosebags  which  we  hung  upon  them, 
less,  I  think,  for  the  sake  of  the  grain  than 
for  the  protection  that  they  afforded  to 
tortured  nostrils. 

At  about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
things  began  to  happen.  The  sandstorm, 
after  a  final  furious  effort  or  two,  died 
away  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come  up  in 
the  dawn ;  coffee,  made  in  some  infantry 
mess  in  one  of  the  houses,  was  brought 
down  to  us  in  great  cauldrons  ;  troop 
sergeants  arose  and  told   us   to   feed   "  and 

be quick  about  it  !  "  and  when  we  had 

stuffed  ourselves  with  army-biscuits  soaked 
in  black  coffee,  a  casual -looking  train 
strolled  round  a  bend  in  the  line,  and 
gave  us  a  glimpse  of  General  McKenzie  and, 
along  its  dingy  length,  of  a  fresco  of  Staff 
officers  and  hospital   nurses. 

Handkerchiefs  were  fluttering  to  us,  and 
we  suddenly  became  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  our  sand-encrusted  state  held  something 
of  the  picturesque.  Non-commissioned 
officers  who  up  till  then  had  been  content 
to  stare  moodily  at  the  sand  suddenly  became 
imbued  with  huge  energy,  and  stood  in 
heroic    postures    and    shouted    meaningless 


122  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

orders  at  troopers  who  were  too  busy. 
**  doing  their  bit "  to  take  any  sort  of 
notice,  until  a  real  order  came  from 
somewhere,  and  we  fell  in  to  listen  to 
instructions . 

"  Water-bottles  to  be  filled.  Rations  for 
horse  and  man  for  one  day  to  be  drawn. 
Rifles  to  be  inspected.  Greatcoats  and 
blankets  to  be  rolled  up— and  to  be  left 
behind." 

" to  be  left  behind!  "     H'm  !  it  was 

going  to  be  cold  work  then.  But  what 
did  the  cold  matter?  What  did  anything 
matter?  We  were  not  going  to  travel 
light  for  nothing.  There  was  fun  ahead. 
Joy  ! 

We  listened  in  a  deep  content,  and  when 
the  order  came  for  us  to  fall  away,  we  did 
not  wait  for  any  more,  but  flung  upon 
the  quartermaster  and  demanded  things 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  man  and 
beast.  We  heaped  our  overcoats  and 
blankets  upon  him,  and  contumely  when 
he  told  us  that  the  rum  ration  had  not 
arrived . 

Not,  of  course,  that  we  really  minded. 
The  rum  was  of  a  particularly  vile  order, 
but  it   seemed  to   represent  something  that 


A   NIGHT    RIDE,    AND   AFTER     123 

we  had  left  behind  us  when  we  *'  joined  the 
Army,"  and  we  used  to  insist  upon  the  issue, 
and  when  we  had  got  it,  we  used  to  screw 
up  our  eyes  and  drink  ostentatious  silent 
toasts . 

"  Saddle  up  !  " 

The  welcome  command  cut  short  our 
pretence  at  grumbling,  and  we  seized  saddles 
and  bridles  and  rushed  the  horse  lines.  A 
quarter  of  an  hour  later  we  were  paraded 
and  inspected  by  the  General.  The  scene, 
I  think,  may  not  have  been  altogether 
unimpressive.  The  dark  mass  of  Car- 
bineers were  paraded  in  front  of  us,  and 
the  ridge  above  was  black  with  watching 
infantry . 

The  dregs  of  a  sullen,  purple  sunset 
brooded  over  the  far  hills,  and  the  air, 
warm  and  pulseless,  was  oppressive  even 
after  the  sandstorm.  In  any  other  country 
one  would  have  said  that  "  it  looked  like 
rain,"  but  in  that  desert  the  thought  even 
was  not  admissible.  The  slow  light  faded, 
and  the  spectators  on  the  ridge  became  a 
ragged  black  fringe. 

A  knot  of  these,  midway  between  our- 
selves and  the  Carbineers,  raised  a  faint 
cheer.     What  was  happening?     Ah!  There 


124  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

was  a  stir  and  a  rustle  among  the  troops 
ahead  of  us,  and  we  could  see  the  dark 
column  writhing  out  as  squadron  after 
squadron  linked  up  and  thrust  forward. 
Our  turn  came,  and  with  it  the  familiar 
smell  of   kicked-up   dust. 

The  same  order  as  before  :  Natal  Car- 
bineers— four  squadrons  of  them — in  front ; 
ourselves  next ;  then  the  Intelligence  (why 
behind?  I  wondered);  and  then  the  dust 
walls  closed  upon  us,  and  we — my:  section, 
that  is,  with  those  immediately  before  and 
behind  us — were  alone. 

For  some  miles  we  kept  to  the  railway 
line.  Stettin,  marked  large  on  the  map, 
but  consisting  in  reality  of  a  tin  shed  and 
a  signboard,  and  nothing  more — the  place 
memorable  where  we  had  first  run  into  the 
Germans — was  passed  while  there  was  still 
sufficient  light  to  see  things.  There  was  the 
spurred  heel  of  rock  whence  the  enemy  had 
ambushed  our  advance,  and  there  were  still 
the  dead  horses — dark  blots  on  the  grey 
sand. 

Nothing  much  in  themselves,  but  of  deep 
interest  to  men  who  had  existed  for  nearly 
a  month  on  the  bare  memory  of  that  first 
brisk    little   skirmish    among    the    desolate 


A    NIGHT    RIDE,    AND   AFTER     125 

sand-dunes.  A  mile  or  so  farther  on  we 
passed  Fort  Grasplatz,  looking  now  piti- 
fully abandoned  with  its  splintered  door 
still  swinging  on  twisted  hinges,  and  the 
untidy  litter  before  the  store  which  we  had 
rifled  for  food  and  drink.  It  had  looked 
vastly  different  on  that  first  morning 
when  it  had  risen  out  of  the  sunrise 
to  spit  bullets  at  the  ridge  whereon  we 
had    lain . 

Thus  far,  Grasplatz  had  represented  the 
farthest  point  of  our  wanderings.  We  had 
paid  several  official  and  entirely  uneventful 
visits  to  the  place,  and  its  attractions  had 
long  since  palled.  From  now  onwards  was 
brand-new  country,  and  the  thought  gave 
to  the  bare -shouldered  hills  before  us  some- 
thing of  a  sinister  lure. 

It  was  somewhere  among  these  black 
granite  ridges,  miles  after  we  had  forsaken 
the  railway,  that  the  darkness  ahead  was 
split  by  a  sudden  flash  of  white  light,  and 
before  my  horse  had  ceased  to  expostulate — 
on  his  hind  legs — the  deep -throated  growl 
of  thunder  rose  above  the  sound  of  our 
progress . 

From  then  onwards,  throughout  the  night, 
our  way  was  lit   by  the   streaked  flame  of 


126  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

a  storm  that  seemed  never  to  get  any  nearer . 
Unsuspected  hills  stood  up  in  instant 
silhouette  against  the  glare,  and  were  gone, 
and  came  again,  and  went.  There  was  not 
a  breath  of  wind,  and  the  heavy  pall  of  dust 
choked  us  as  we  rode  forward.  Dead-white 
walls,  whereon  each  night -stabbing  flash 
painted  spots  and  Catherine -wheels  of 
shifting  colour,  shut  us  in,  and  the  dull 
muttering  of  the  night's  wrath  swallowed  all 
sound  else.  The  slow  miles  dropped  behind, 
white  sand  gave  place  to  red,  and  then  the 
real  darkness  came,  and  with  it  the  smell 
of  rain.  The  horses  smelt  it,  and  one  could 
feel  the  new  life  in  them  as  they  lifted 
their  heads  and  opened  wide  nostrils  to 
its   coolth. 

But  the  rain  never  came.  Only  the  light- 
ning woke  the  white  sparkle  of  steel  in  the 
curtain  of  fine  red  dust  that  rose  in  swathes 
about  us,  and  the  mocking  storm-god 
growled  in  his  throat  at  our  longing.  Some- 
where towards  the  dawn  we  ofl^-saddled,  and 
laid  ourselves  down  for  such  sleep  as  we 
could  find. 

On  our  left  hand,  and  seen  only  when  the 
vagrant  lightning  threw  its  bulk  into  dark 
relief    against    the    clouds,    towered    a    red- 


A   NIGHT    RIDE,    AND   AFTER     127 

walled  mountain  of  sand.  On  the  other  side 
of  it,  somewhere,  we  understood,  was  a 
place  marked  in  capital  letters  on  the  map 
as  "  Rotkuppes."  How  far,  or  how  near, 
we  neither  knew  nor  cared.  We  were  too 
tired  to  strip  ourselves  of  our  bandoliers 
even,  and  we  lay  as  we  had  ridden,  hung 
about  with  all  the  uncomfortable  accoutre- 
ment of  the  M.I.,  but  it  was  a  happy,  thought,, 
all  the  same,  to  know  that  Rotkuppes  was 
on  the  farther  side  of  that  hill.  Capital 
letters  must  surely  spell  Germans,  and  we 
were  really  very,  very  keen. 

A  warm  wind  searched  us  out  at  dawn, 
and  we  awoke  and  saddled  up  under  a  sky 
of  deep-bellied  clouds  that  looked  as  if  they 
needed  only  a  push  to  make  them  rain. 
We  wanted  that  rain  almost  as  badly  as  we 
wanted  the  Germans,  but  in  the  meantime 
the  Carbineers,  still  ahead  of  us,  were  on 
the  move,  and  some  one — he  might  have 
been  our  troop  officer,  or  only  a  sergeant, 
so  sand -obliterated  was  all  his  rank— rode 
swiftly  down  our  lines  and  bade  us  hurry. 
I  like  to  think  that  he  was  only  a  sergeant, 
though,  because  his  language  was  not  in 
any  sense  befitting  an  officer  ;  but  we  were 
mounted    and    moving    off    before    he    had 


128  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

got  rid  of  the  half  of  what  he  must  have 
wanted  to  say,  and  it  didn't  really  matter 
much,  either  way. 

To  our  great  surprise  we  had  ridden  only 
a  few  hundred  yards  when  we  were  ordered 
to  dismount  again.  The  main  body  of  the 
Carbineers  moved  off  a  hundred  yards  or 
so  to  our  left,  and  halted.  One  squadron 
of  them  handed  over  its  horses,  and  made 
for  a  lip  of  sand  that  ran  obliquely  across 
our  front  to  the  plain  below.  Others, 
among  them  the  Intelligence  men,  were 
creeping  up  to  the  crest  of  red  sandstone 
that  towered  up  above  us.  To  our  right 
was  open  desert. 

"  Look  I  "  said  a  man  suddenly  to  me, 
**  there's  the  General."  It  was  true.  He 
was  there^  kneeling  down  at  the  extreme 
left  of  the  Carbineers  festooning  the  ridge 
in  front.  Captain  Botha,  his  A.D.C.,  and 
the  son  of  South  Africa's  Prime  Minister, 
was  with  him.  Both  were  staring  through 
field-glasses  at  something  that  was  hidden 
from  us  by  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  and 
while  we  watched  I  saw  the  General  turn 
and  speak  swiftly  to  his  companions.  A 
moment  later  a  Carbineer  officer  slipped 
down  from    the    bank   and   ran,    crouching. 


A   NIGHT    RIDE,    AND   AFTER     129 

in  our  direction.  He  was  obviously  excited, 
and  we  watched  him  curiously.  Arrived  in 
the  hollow  where  we  stood  to  our  horses, 
he  jerked  himself  upright,  and  waved  his 
arms  violently  in  our  faces.  For  a  moment 
I  half  feared  for  his  mind,  and  then  I  saw 
that  he  was  looking,  not  at  us,  but  at  the 
ridge  behind,  and  I  turned  and  saw, 
silhouetted  against  the  sky,  a  group  of 
ammunition  pack -mules.  At  all  times,  as 
has  been  sung  elsewhere,  a  mule  is  a  mule, 
but  when  he  is  perched  against  a  skyline, 
in  full  view  of  such  of  the  enemy  as  may 
be  within  a  ten -mile  radius,  he  looks, 
sublimely,  an  ass.  The  man  in  charge  of 
them  was  obviously  interested  in  the  be- 
haviour of  the  officer  in  the  hollow,  for  he 
stared   curiously   down  at    us.      "Oh!    you 

dam  fool  !  you you  dam  fool  !     Who 

the  blind  blazes  sent  you  up  there?  Come 
to  h — 11  out  of  it  !  "  I  heard  the  officer- 
man  mutter — he  did  not  dare  to  shout — 
but  it  was  of  no  avail,  and  the  pantomime 
might  have  gone  on  for  some  time  had  not 
a  group  of  Carbineers  who  were  lying  in 
cover  some  fifty  yards  below  the  crest 
scrambled  up  and  awakened  the  muleteer 
from  his   dream,  and  dragged  and  pushed 

9 


I30         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

his  reluctant  beasts  down  the  slope  and  into 
the  hollow. 

"  Consider  yourself  under  arrest  !  "  The 
words  were  barked  at  the  now  thoroughly 
startled -looking  custodian  of  the  mules,  and 
the  officer  turned  and  bolted  like  a  rabbit 
back  to  the  ridge. 

"  '  D  '  Squadron  !  .  .  .  get  mounted  !  " 
The  order  sent  a  quick  thrill  down  the 
line,  and  we  lifted  briskly  to  our  saddles. 
"Sections  right!  Tr-r-ot  !  "  and  we  were 
off,  swinging  for  the  ridge  whereon  the 
Carbineers  lay.  The  order  came  again  : 
"  Sections  right  !  "  and  as  we  turned  a 
rifle  shot  cracked  in  the  dry  air  with  the 
sound  of  a  whip,  and  on  the  instant  after 
the  entire  ridge  blazed  into  a  fury  of  rapid 
fire.  Of  the  enemy  we  could  see  nothing— 
they  were  still  hidden  from  us  by  the 
sand-wall— nor  could  we  tell  if  they  were 
firing  back  or  not,  although  I  can  remem- 
ber just  how  I  glanced  involuntarily  to  my 
right  to  see  if  any  saddles  of  my  troop  were 
empty.  A  few  seconds  later  we  were  in  the 
open.  The  firing  ceased  with  that  one 
savage  burst,  but  I  do  not  think  that  we 
were  conscious  of  the  fact  for  some  time 
afterwards. 


A    NIGHT    RIDE,   AND   AFTER     131 

Close  under  the  ridge  lay  a  white  horse, 
its  rider  sitting  up  with  both  hands  raised 
above  his  head.  We  were  quite  close  to 
him,  and  could  see  that  he  looked  more 
astonished  than  frightened.  Some  yards 
beyond  these  stood  another  horse,  obviously 
badly  wounded— its  back  humped  and  its 
head  drooping.  A  figure  in  a  blood-spat- 
tered grey  uniform  lay  untidily  beneath  it. 
His  right  arm,  smashed  by  a  bullet,  was 
doubled  back  from  the  elbow ;  the  other 
seemed  to  be  twisted  under  the  body.  One 
foot  was  still  caught  in  a  stirrup -iron,  and 
the  upheld  leg  gave  to  the  whole  wretched 
picture  an  air  of  horrid  jauntiness  that  the 
white  face  of  the  wounded  man  made  only 
more  pronounced. 

Then  occurred  the  thing  that  was  to 
make  of  tragedy  (for  even  killing  your 
enemy  may  be  tragedy)  farce.  Our  farrier- 
sergeant,  a  gentleman  chiefly  notable  in 
that  his  tongue  was  as  rough  as  his  pro- 
fessional rasp,  and  whose  place  was  any- 
where but  where  he  happened  to  be— at  the 
head  of  the  squadron— was  seen  to  draw  a 
large  pattern  Army  revolver,  and  charge 
down  upon  the  stricken  German.  For  a 
moment  we  hovered  in   wonderment  at  his 


132  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

manoeuvre,  but  when  we  saw  him  rein  in, 
and  solemnly  present  his  pistol  at  the  un- 
fortunate man's  head,  and  heard  him  say, 
in  what  his  victim  must  have  considered 
quite    unnecessarily    loud    tones  :     "  Hands 

up  !     ye  blaggard  !     Hands  up  !    or  I'll 

blow  yer head  through  yer  chest  !  "  then, 

then  we  just  collapsed.  Our  officers,  even, 
forgot  themselves  and  smiled,  and  we,  pit 
and  gallery,  non-commissioned  officers  and 
men,  yelled  with  laughter— a  music-hall  tour 
de  force. 

After  that,  the  third  and  last  group  that 
we  saw  seemed  superfluous,  and,  besides, 
both  horse  and  rider  were  too  obviously 
dead  to  be  of  much  interest. 

I  have  since  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
war  is  not  in  any  sense  a  refined  pastime. 


CHAPTER  VII 
BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL   BAGS 

Somehow,  we  seemed  always  to  be  playing 
on  the  outer  fringe  of  war.  One  fierce  little 
encounter  only  had  there  been — a  sort  of 
"  appetiser  "  before  the  dinner  that  we  were 
never  really  to  taste  ;  since  then— nothing  ! 
We  had  stalked  blockhouses,  surrounded 
forts,  had  even  hurled  ourselves  upon  mili- 
tary posts  ;  but  the  blockhouses  had  in- 
variably proved  to  be  empty,  the  forts 
had  borne  the  aspect  of  abandoned  Kafir 
stores,  and  closer  inspection  had  shown 
the  military  posts  to  be,  as  a  rule,  more 
post  (usually  with  a  notice-board  on  the 
top  of  it)  than  military.  We  suffered 
gladly  the  hardships  of  long  night-rides 
to  ''  destinations  unknown,"  and  when,  as 
they  invariably  did,  these  expeditions  ended 
in  nothing,  we  made  a  jest  of  our  curses 
and    hoped    for    "  better    luck    next    time." 

But  the  next  time  was  the  same,   and  the 

133 


134         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

time  after,  and  the  time  after  that ;  and  now 
after  two  long  nights  in  the  saddle,  and  a 
day  of  pitiless,  scourging  sand-storm,  the 
great  moment  had  come.  "  D  "  Squadron, 
I.L.H.,  had  been  sent  out,  with  the  acrid 
smell  of  cordite  in  its  nostrils  and  the  cold 
grip  of  battle  in  the  pit  of  its  stomach,  at 
full  gallop,  to  "  do  or  die  "  against— three 
very  badly  crumpled  Germans .  It  was  really 
too  funny. 

This  was  not  war.  It  was  some  new 
game  of  which,  as  yet,  we  had  not  quite 
got  the  hang.  Gone  from  that  moment 
were  the  last  lingering  shreds  of  any  respect 
that  we  might  have  entertained  for  the 
campaign,  as  a  campaign.  But  what, 
then,  was  it,  if  not  a  campaign?  A  picnic? 
Assuredly  not  !  The  hot -breathed  sand- 
storms ;  the  flies  ;  and  the  water— or,  rather, 
the  want  of  water— denied  the  term  with 
a  brutal  emphasis .  No  !  it  was  a  game 
of  sorts,  and  for  myself,  I  began  to 
have  a  haunting  suspicion  that  at  some 
time,  somewhere,  I  had  been  through  it 
all  before.  Where,  then?  And  how?  For 
the   life  of   me    I   could  not   remember. 

*'  Seems  pleased  with  himself,"  said  a 
voice    near    me,    and     I    looked    and    saw 


BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL^  BAGS     135 

General  Sir  Duncan  McKenzie  talking  to 
our  "old  man,"  and  smiling  affably.  A 
minute  later  he  left  and  strolLed  over  to 
a  bunch  of  Carbineers  standing  to  their 
horses  at  the  base  of  the  hill  on  our  left. 
He  chatted  to  the  officer  in  charge  for  a 
few  moments,  and  I  could  see  him  point- 
ing towards  the  desert  as  though  indicat- 
ing some  plan.  "There,"  one  could  almost 
hear  him  saying,  "  there  I  will  have  such 
and  such  a  troop  posted  ;   this  squadron  will 

move  over  there  ;    that  squadron  will  ," 

and  a  wave  of  the  arm  completed  the 
sentence . 

And  then  I  knew.  Of  course,  it  was  not 
war,  or  anything  like  war.  It  was  a 
partridge-drive.  General  McKenzie  —  his 
ruddy  face,  his  snow-white  moustache,  and 
his  general  air  of  business-like  geniality 
making  of  him  the  pluperfect  country  gentle- 
man—was our  host.  We  were  the  guests; 
there  had  already  been  one  drive— not  a 
very  successful  one— and  now  we  were 
being  assigned  to  our  positions  for  the 
next . 

Then  occurred  the  thing  that  was  to 
heighten  to  an  almost  absurd  degree  this 
appearance    of    a    typical    country    gentle- 


136  WITH    BOTHA'S    ARMY 

man  directing  a  typical  ''  shoot."  Thus 
had  I  seen  the  thing  happen,  years  before, 
in   an   Enghsh   countryside. 

The  General  had  left  the  Carbineers, 
and  was  walking  to  some  rising  ground 
where  he  would  better  be  able  to  over- 
look the  ''  guns,"  when  he  swung  suddenly 
half  around,  and  stood  for  a  moment  as 
if  turned  to  stone .  For  a  moment  only  ; 
then— and  I  have  some  six  hundred  and 
odd  witnesses  to  support  me,  remember— 
he  shook  his  fist  at  something  or  some- 
body that  was  hidden  from  us  by  the 
swell  of  the  ground.  Then  he  shook 
both  fists,  and  then,  as  if  he  felt  that 
the  display  was  inadequate,  he  brought 
his  lower  limbs  into  play  and  actually 
danced  a  few  steps.  His  voice  came 
to  us  through  the  clear  air,  and— but,  no  I 
it  would  not  do.  He  is  a  General ;  I 
was  only  a  corporal,  and  anyway,  it  was 
not  swearing ;  it  was  pure  oratory,  of  a 
quality  that  should  have  bowed  in  silent 
shame  and  envy  the  head  of  any  squadron 
sergeant-major  within  hearing.  A  breath- 
less minute  passed,  and  then — or  so  it 
seemed  to  us  who  were  watching — there 
crawled   out    of   the    sand   at   the    G.O.C.'s 


BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL   BAGS     137 

feet  an  abject -looking  officer-man.  Host 
and  blundering  under -keeper  ;  they  faced 
one  another  for  a  few  moments,  and  then 
the  abject  one  drifted  away  on  the  flood 
of  rhetoric  to  strand  eventually  on  the 
sand-ridge  behind  which  lay  the  three 
crumpled  Germans  with  their  dead  horses. 
Arrived  there,  he  shook  himself  and  looked 
over.  What  he  saw  seemed  on  the  instant 
to  put  new  life  into  him,  and  he  straightened 
himself  and  became  a  fair  understudy  of 
the  exalted  rage  behind  him.  "What  the 
hell  d'ye  think  y'are?"  we  heard  him 
ask.  ".  .  .  .  blasted  war  correspondents? 
Come  out  of  it,  you— you  banana -fed 
tourists  !  "  This  was  a  gibe  at  the  men 
from  Natal,  and  we  chortled  hugely 
among  ourselves.  A  short  minute  later, 
when  there  appeared  on  the  crest  beside 
him  a  group  of  unhappy-looking  Car- 
bineers armed  with  kodaks  that  they  tried 
in  vain  to  hide  behind  their  injured  ex- 
pressions, our  mirth  was  helplessly  open. 

To  them  came  the  General.  Mounted 
now,  and  at  the  top  of  his  form,  one 
short,  staccato  burst  sufficed  to  place  the 
entire  group  under  arrest.  A  sweep  of  his 
arm  seemed  to  include  a  troop  standing  to 


138  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

horses  some  fifty  yards  farther  on.  The 
troop  looked  away  with  immediate  osten- 
tation, and  the  General  turned  to  us.  For 
a  moment  I  thought  that  he  was  going 
to  put  us  under  arrest,  too.  "  Colonel 
D-n-lds-n  !  "    he    began,    "  get    your    men 

mounted,  and  take  them "    A  wave  of  his 

arm  indicated  the  sweep  of  hills  to  our  right 
front,  and  then,  as  our  CO.  swung  to  his 
saddle  and  rode  forward  to  meet  him,  his 
voice  dropped  and  I  could  hear  only  frag- 
ments :  ".  .  .  spoiled  everything!  .  .  . 
you  will  .  .  .  men  .  .  .  ride  like  the 
devil  !  " 

Five  minutes  later  we  were  in  the  open, 
dust  and  the  drum -thunder  of  hoofs  upon 
us,  and  the  song  of  wind  in  our  ears. 
"  Steady  the  pace  !  "  a  voice  shouted,  and 
the  troop  ahead  seemed  suddenly  to  lift 
back  at  us  out  of  the  sand -haze.  For 
a  moment,  as  we  reined  in,  was  a  desperate 
confusion  of  sections  driving  through  broken 
sections  before  them,  and  of  troops  as 
orderless  as  herds  of  panic -ridden  antelope. 
A  matter  of  seconds  only,  and  then  the 
broken  back  of  the  column  mended  some- 
how, and  we  swept  forward  again.  But  the 
pace  was  steadier. 


BIG   GAME,    BUT    SMALL    BAGS     139 

It  was  a  day  of  clouds.  A  sky,  fiercely 
blue,  was  burning  great  holes  in  the  sag- 
bellied  vapour  overhead,  and  the  desert's 
face  about  us  was  fungus -blotched  with 
shadow.  Miles  away  to  our  right  the  hills 
that  guard  Tschaukaib  stood  up  blackly 
against  the  white  promise  of  the  rain. 
Upon  the  knees  of  the  red  hills  along 
whose  marge  we  rode  was  a  hint  of 
greenery,  and  here  and  there,  between 
the  shifting  cloud-shadows,  the  dead-white 
glare  of  the  open  sands  below  us  was 
tempered  with  the  same  soft  touch.  The 
miles  fled  past  us.  Shadows  stood  out  of 
the  distances,  became  real  hills,  sidled  past, 
and  were  gone.  Once,  there  was  a  tree 
—the  first  we  had  seen  in  the  country— 
and  the  wonder  of  it  held  every  man  of 
us  agape  until  it  became  lost  in  the  dust- 
haze  behind. 

Shortly  afterwards  the  hills  ended 
abruptly,  and  a  field  of  sand-dunes,  all 
silver-soft  in  that  soft  light,  shut  us  sud- 
denly in.  Here  was  heavy  going  indeed, 
but  no  slackening  of  pace.  The  old,  familiar 
curtain  of  dust  rose  up  about  us  and  hid 
everything.  Through  it  there  came  the 
sudden,    shrill   blast   of   a   whistle,    followed 


I40  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

by  a  sound  of  struggling.  A  voice  cursed 
briefly,  and  some  one,  or  it  may  have  been 
two  or  three,  laughed.  A  riderless  horse 
plunged  past  us.  "That's  so-and-so's 
mare,"  a  man  in  my  section  said.  "  Won- 
der why  he's  off?"  A  moment  later 
and  he— we,  all  knew.  There  was  a  sud- 
den check  in  the  sections  before  us— for 
all  the  world  as  though  the  troop  had 
charged  into  an  immense  plum -pudding 
—and  then  my  horse's  hindquarters  dropped 
away  from  behind  me,  and  his  head  shot 
up  into  the  clouds.  I  clung  on  grimly, 
and  watched,  with  a  sort  of  horrified 
fascination,  the  straining  hindquarters  of 
a  perpendicular  beast  somewhat  to  my 
right,  and,  seemingly,  miles  above  me. 
The    animal    was    a    strawberry    roan,    and 

I    recognized    it    as    H 's    mount,    and    I 

remember,    too,    that    I    wondered    stupidly 

where     H was    until    my    own    beast's 

head  and  rump  resumed  their  normal 
horizontal  relationship  with  a  jerk  that 
nearly  shot  me  out  of  the  saddle,  and 
I     looked    up    to    find    a    very    breathless 

H holding  on  to  the  bridle  of  a  strav/- 

berry  roan  as  scandalized -looking  as  him- 
self. 


BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL    BAGS     141 

We  were  on  the  roof  of  a  sand-dune, 
and  partly  for  curiosity's  sake,  and  partly 
to  tighten  a  girth  which  had  slipped,  I  dis- 
mounted to  peer  over  the  edge.  What 
the  angle  was  of  that  steeply  tilted  wall 
up  which  we  had  ridden  I  do  not  know. 
And  even  if  I  did  know,  I  would  not 
write  it  here  because  I  should  not  ex- 
pect to  be  believed.  The  slope— call  it 
that  if  you  will— was  not  an  inch  short  of 
forty  feet,  anyway,  and  it  was  as  steeply 
tilted  as— as  a  walking-stick ;  which  in- 
formation, I  know,  conveys  less  than 
nothing,  and  is  therefore  the  best  possible 
kind  of  information  under  the  circum- 
stances . 

Surprises  came  quickly  after  that.  The 
dune -field  narrowed  until  it  was  less  than 
a  hundred  yards  across,  and  we  became 
aware  of  three  horsemen— mere  specks  in 
the  white  distance — making  in  our  direc- 
tion. They  could  only  be  Germans,  and 
we  rode  cheerfully  forward  to  meet  them. 
There  was  little  of  order  in  our  going. 
Some  half-dozen  men  of  my  troop, 
separated  from  us  by  a  gulf  of  deep 
sand,  rode  in  a  forlorn  independence  at 
some    one    hundred    and    fifty    yards    dis- 


142  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

tance,  and  a  group — unassorted — of  men 
from  other  troops  jogged  sheepishly  behind 
us,  and  tried  to  look  as  if  they  belonged. 
A  riderless  horse,  treading  stiff-legged  on 
clouds  of  disdain,  jinked  loftily  by  as  though 
the  saddle  slewed  under  its  belly  were  a 
mark  of  honoured  distinction  conferred  for 
the  losing  of  its  rider  down  some  wall  of 
sand. 

There  was  a  curious  lack  of  excitement 
about  the  prooeedings.  The  Germans  were 
hidden  from  view  for  a  time  by  a  lofty 
dune  that  seemed  to  stand  on  the  shoulders 
of  its  fellows.  There  was  plenty  of  time, 
however.  They  were  coming  in  our 
direction,  so  what  need  to  hurry?  We 
reined  in  to  a  walk,  and  finally,  in  response 
to  an  order,  dismounted  and  strolled  to  a 
lip  of  sand  overlooking  the  white  plain 
before  us.  A  vast  plain  it  was,  ringed 
about  with  hills.  A  distant  sky-line  was 
dotted  with  specks  advancing  in  open  forma- 
tion, and  a  helio  winked  restlessly  from 
somewhere  on  our  left  front.  Nearer  at 
hand,  but  still  at  some  two  thousand  yards 
range,  was  a  small  group  of  horsemen,  and 
from  them,  as  we  watched,  came  a  sudden 
sputter    of     rifle -fire,     but     at    whom    they 


BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL    BAGS     143 

had  fired  we  could  not  say.  Through 
field-glasses  it  was  possible  to  see  that 
one  of  their  horses  limped  badly  as  it 
moved  along.  Our  own  three  Germans — 
and  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  a  feeling 
of  proprietorship  in  regard  to  them  as 
they  rode  trustingly  towards  us — were 
now  within  some  six  or  seven  hundred 
yards,  and  the  soft  **  snick "  of  a  rifle - 
bolt  pushed  home  by  some  one  near  me 
struck  a  note  that  was  all  grim. 

Nothing — I  had  almost  said  the  **  in- 
evitable nothing  " — was  to  happen,  how- 
ever. At  five  hundred  yards  the  three 
caught  sight  of  us,  and  reined  in.  For  a 
few  brief  moments  they  gazed  at  us  like 
startled  buck,  and  then  their  hands  went 
up  in  token  of  surrender. 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  we  rejoined 
the  Carbineers  at  Rutkuppes  proper  —  the 
capital  letters  which  had  meant  so  much  to 
us  spelt,  in  this  case,  one  dilapidated  tin 
hut  and  a  tarnished  name -board — we  found 
that  they,  too,  had  bagged  a  brace  and  a 
half  of  Germans. 

Of  the  three,  one  was  a  heavy -faced 
man  of  middle  age ;  another,  a  little 
person    with    round    shoulders    and    heavy 


144  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

gold -rimmed  spectacles,  looked  like  a 
student.  (We  learned  afterwards  that  he 
had  been  a  chemist's  assistant  in  Luder- 
itzbucht.)  The  third  was  a  pleasant- 
looking  boy  of  about  nineteen.  All  three 
wore  the  corduroy  uniform  of  the  reservist, 
and  looked  vastly  different  to  the  scouting 
party  which,  at  Stettin  on  September  the 
25th,  had  stood  up  to  the  squadron  of  us 
until  they  were  all  shot  down  with  one 
exception,  and  that  exception  had  only 
surrendered  when  his  rifle  was  empty.  I 
felt  rather  sorry  for  these  men.  With  the 
exception,  perhaps,  of  the  boy  of  nineteen, 
they  looked  cowed  and  miserable.  The  little 
fellow  with  the  gold -rimmed  glasses  was 
trembling  violently — we  were  told  afterwards 
that  his  hands  had  had  to  be  forcibly 
pulled  down,  so  anxious  was  he  to  emphasize 
the  completeness  of  his  surrender — and  the 
heavy-faced  man  was  twisting  and  un- 
twisting his  fingers,  and  he  muttered  occa- 
sionally to  himself.  An  interesting  sight 
even  if  a  little  nauseating. 

Surrounding  the  prisoners  was  a  dense 
crowd  of  Carbineers,  and  out  of  their 
gaping  regard  arose  the  touch  of  inevitable 
humour    that    marked    everything    that    was 


BIG   GAME,    BUT   SMALL   BAGS     145 

said,  or  done,  or  thought,  in  that  pantomime 
campaign.  Through  the  silence  of  deep 
interest  that  held  the  crowd  came  an 
awestruck  whisper.  "  Golly  !  "  it  said. 
"  What   fierce-looking   brutes  !  " 


10 


CHAPTER    VIII 

WAR'S   GRIM   JESTS   AND   MORALS 

''  We  sat  down  in  the  sand  and  played 
auction  bridge,  and  the  people  at  home 
called  it  *  war  '  !  " 

This,  the  least  flattering,  and  certainly 
the  briefest  description  of  our  campaign 
that  I  have  so  far  heard,  was  said  to  me 
by  a  man  of  my  squadron  whom  I  met 
in  Cape  Town  months  after  the  word 
"  German  "  had  been  wiped  off  the  map  of 
South-Western  Africa.  It  is  true  that  in 
earlier  sketches  I  have  emphasized  the  fact 
that  we  did  little  more  in  G.S.W.A.  than 
play  with  war;  but  to  call  it  auction  bridge 
— well  !  to  every  man  his  own  especial  type 
of  reminiscences,  and  perhaps— who  can 
say  ? — the  embittered  one  may  have  held  bad 
cards . 

The  gambler  (I  cannot  for  the  moment 
recall    the    less    emphatic    expression)    may 

remember    chiefly    the    strange    conditions 

146 


WAR'S   GRIM   JESTS  147 

under  which  he  has  revoked ;  your  real, 
hardened  citizen,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
look  back  with  a  mild  or  wild  surprise 
— the  degree  of  his  astonishment  depend- 
ing, of  course,  upon  the  degree  of  his 
hardness — to  the  outstanding  fact  that  he 
learned  in  the  desert  to  look  upon  mere 
water  as  a  precious  beverage ;  the  mind 
of  the  small  despot  will  dwell,  to  the 
exclusion  of  almost  everything  else,  upon 
the  corporal's  or  sergeant's  stripes  that 
were  his,  or  upon  the  "  favouritism  " — a 
word  dear  to  the  patriot  under  arms — that 
kept  him  undecorated ;  while  for  myself 
I  can  say  that  by  few  things  in  that  cam- 
paign of  hard-edged  ennui  was  I  more  im- 
pressed in  the  end  than  by  the  truth  of  art 
oil-painting  which  I  saw  in  Luderitzbucht 
within  a  day  or  so  of  our  landing. 

A  man,  dying  of  thirst,  blood -red  as  to 
the  colour  of  him,  and  hideous  hate  and 
suffering  as  to  all  else  of  him,  was  lying 
upon  a  vivid  orange  sand-dune,  and 
cursing  with  his  eyes,  and  mouth,  and 
feeble,  outstretched  arm  a  blue,  smiling  sea 
— the  water  that  was  of  no  use  to  him — 
that  mocked  at  him  from  across  a  beach 
of  purple -streaked  white  sand.     The  woman 


148  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

who  shoiwed  me  the  picture  informed  me 
that  it  was  the  work  of  a  young  artist 
who  had  given  it  to  her  when  he  left  for 
Germany.  "  He  did  not  care  to  take  it 
with  him/'  she  said,  and  then,  seeing  me 
smile,  added  :  "  Ah  I  wait  until  you  have 
been  in  the  desert  for  a  year,  and  then 
come  back  and  look  at  it  again." 

It  did  not  need  anything  like  a  year, 
however,  for  me  to  become  convinced  that 
the  artist  was  right.  What,  exactly, 
brought  about  the  change  I  do  not  know, 
but  perhaps  it  was  only  the  natural  out- 
come of  existence  in  a  country  wherein 
was  no  living  thing  save  yourself  and 
your  fellows,  and  the  men  whom  you  de- 
sired to  kill,  and  who  desired  to  kill  you  ; 
where  was  neither  beast  nor  bird,  nor  any 
sound  save  the  great  soundful  silence  of  the 
winds,  the  still  music  that  could  be  heard 
sometimes  in  the  purple  and  scarlet  of 
dawn  and  dusk,  and  in  the  shimmering 
fury  of  white-hot  noon. 

At  Luderitzbucht  there  is  a  devil -inspired 
mirage,  which  day  by  day  paints  across  the 
sky  a  wonder  picture  of  the  sea.  When 
first  I  saw  it  I  sat  down  on  the  sand  and 
thought    quickly.      Then    I    said  to  myself: 


WAR'S   GRIM   JESTS  149 

**  How  funny  !  .  .  .  but  of  course  it  isn't  ! 
How  could  it  be?"  Then  I  looked  again, 
and  was  not  quite  so  sure.  The  word 
"  mirage  "  rose  glibly  enough  to  my  lips, 
it  is  true,  but  did  anything  that  I  had 
ever  heard  or  read  of  mirages  justify  it? 
I  asked  the  question  of  myself  quite 
seriously. 

Mirages  are  not  common  objects  at  home, 
and  most  of  our  knowledge  concerning  them 
had  been  gleaned  from  the  fiction  of  a 
past  generation.  We  had  even  vaguely 
understood  of  them  that  they  were  a  species 
of  **  visitation "  which  manifested  them- 
selves only  to  people  who  were  dying  of 
thirst,  and  then  only  in  the  form  of  oases 
or  other  places  where  one  could  obtain 
drinks.  We  might  have  supposed,  indeed, 
that  they  went  out  of  fashion  when  drinking, 
as  a  pastime,  came  in.  A  mirage  repre- 
senting an  American  cock -tail  bar  would 
certainly  be  a  tough  nut  for  mere  imagina- 
tion to  crack,  and,  anyway,  I  was  not  dying 
of  thirst,  or,  even  if  I  nearly  was,  the  sea 
didn't  tempt  me,  so  that  it  did  not  prove 
very  much  either  way. 

A  still,  glassy  sea  it  was,  marbled  with 
shoal-water,    and    staked    with    rocks,    and 


I50         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

edged  with  a  coquettish  display  of  white 
foam,  but  in  the  endeavour  to  convey  to 
others  something  of  its  impression  upon  my 
own  mind  I  confess  I  find  a  difficulty  in 
avoiding  too  lavish  a  use  of  the  coloured 
phrase.  As  a  matter  of  cold,  sober  fact — if 
there  can  be  any  sobriety  at  all  in  such  a 
recollection— there  was  nothing  clear-cut 
about  this  amazing  sky-picture.  Its  horizon 
was  all  vague  and  formless — just  such  a 
horizon  as  one  may  see  when  looking  at  a 
real  ocean  on  one  of  those  days  of  muffled 
sunlight,  when  sky  and  water  seem  merged 
together  in  a  shimmer  of  grey  light.  Its 
foam-faced  rocks  were  a-haze  with  heat  and 
distance,  and  at  times  there  would  grow 
upon  the  wide  canvas  dark  patches  that 
might  have  been  caused  by  a  sudden  wind 
upon  the  make-believe  waters,  or — might 
not. 

At  Luderitzbucht  itself  the  mirage  was 
only  occasionally,  and  then  only  very  faintly, 
visible,  but  at  Kolmanskuppe,  some  nine 
miles  inland,  it  was  almost  a  permanent 
feature  of  the  landscape,  and  I  have  known 
men  of  the  infantry  regiments  stationed 
there  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  proportion  and 
the   fitness   of  things   as  nearly   to   come  to 


WAR'S   GRIM   JESTS  151 

blows  over  the  hotly  debated  question  of 
the  apparition's  status  quo  ;  and  I  know  of 
one  man,  at  least,  who  staked  a  whole 
month's  pay  upon  his  conviction  that  it 
was  the  sea,  and  not  any  trick  of  desert - 
magic  or  chicanery  of  cloud,  as  his  fellows 
asserted. 

That  the  changed  psychology  of  men  who 
have  been  in  the  desert  for  a  month  or  so 
is  partly  due  to  actual  affection  of  the  eye- 
sight I  have  little  doubt.  No  man,  surely, 
may  spend  any  length  of  time  in  the  blind, 
white  glare  of  those  desert -belts,  where  each 
morning  finds  him  staring  through  sand- 
encrusted  eyes  at  a  colour -drunken  dawn, 
and  where,  at  noon,  the  high  hills  dance 
together  in  the  flickering  heat  haze,  and 
the  flat  lands  quiver  and  swim  across  tor- 
tured sight,  without,  eventually,  **  seeing 
things,"  and,  what  is  infinitely  worse,  be- 
lieving in  them. 

Not  every  day  was  altogether  bad,  how- 
ever. I  have  known  as  much  as  a  whole 
week  pass  without  a  .sandstorm  really 
worthy  of  the  name,  and  there  were  rare 
days,  too,  when  a  soft  wind  would  blow 
up  from  the  sea  and  with  it  a  kindly  old 
sea-mist  which  would  help  us  to  endure. 


152  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

November  the  14th  will  for  ever  remain 
a  day  memorable  in  the  chequered  annals 
of  "  D  "  Squadron. 

At  sunrise,  or  shortly  after,  we  were 
disturbed  from  our  usual  contemplation 
of  the  sand  about  us  by  the  sound  of 
a  motor  engine  throbbing  on  the  still  air. 
Around  us  the  desert  looked  rather  more 
illimitable  than  usual,  and  as  bare  of  motor 
traffic  as  of  icebergs.  The  east  was  afire 
with  early  sunlight,  and  out  of  it  the 
deep  drone  of  the  engine  beat  down  upon 
us  in  solid  waves  of  sound.  Louder, 
louder — a  shadow  dropped  upon  us  from 
the  skies,  and  fled  away  down  the  sands, 
and—"  Look  !  "  said  a  man  suddenly, 
**  there's  an  aeroplane  !  "  He  spoke  in  the 
conversational  tone  of  one  who  would  say, 
"  Look  I  there's  a  rainbow  I  "  and  we  all,  as 
casually  as  one  who  would  reply,  "  So 
there  is  !  "  turned  and  peered  in  the  direc- 
tion indicated  by  his  outstretched  hand. 
Why,  at  this  point,  we  felt  no  particular 
surprise,  nor  sensed  the  faintest  premoni- 
tion of  what  was  coming  to  us,  I  shall  never 
know.  A  dark  blur  swam  slowly  across  the 
sun's  path  ;  slowly,  slowly — ah  !  The  sudden 
murmur  of   voices   sounded  underneath  the 


WAR'S   GRIM    JESTS  153 

engine's  clatter,  and  the  Taube,  with  wings 
a -tilt,  stood  out  in  clear  relief  against 
the  blue  flame  of  the  sky.  A  confused  mur- 
mur of  interest  broke  from  the  watching 
groups:  "By  Jove!  doesn't  it  look  fine?" 
'  Scouting,  I  suppx)se,"  "  Wish  I  was  up 
there."  The  Taube  was  turning  in  our 
direction.  It  tilted  a  little  more  steeply, 
hung  so  for  a  brief  instant,  and  then  the 
planes  levelled  themselves  ;  there  was  a 
quiver  or  two,  and  some  little  rocking — as 
of  a  seagull  balancing  to  a  head -wind — the 
powerful  exhaust  of  the  engine  roared 
down  the  still  air,  and — '*  Look  out  !  he's 
dropping  bombs  I  "  some  one  shouted. 
Instinct,  rather  than  sense  of  ourselves, 
scattered  us  like  leaves  before  the  wind. 
There  was  a  sound  above  us  like  the 
savage  cracking  noise  that  is  sometimes 
heard  in  the  heart  of  thunder — a  giant 
stuttering  in  wrath — and  a  sense  of  things 
dropping  swiftly.  There  followed  an  in- 
stant when  the  sky  fell  upon  us  with  a 
crushing  weight  of  utter  silence,  and  the 
earth  held  its  breath.  Then — the  explosion 
was  very  near,  remember — the  firmaments 
shouted  aloud  in  a  thunder -clap  of  sound  ; 
and  the  four  dimensions  danced  drunkenly 


154  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

together,  and  all  that  we  saw,  we  who  lay 
where  we  had  flung  ourselves  upon  the 
sand,  or  who  ran,  not  knowing  why,  nor 
whither,  was  a  feather-headed  tower  of 
dust  that  stood  up  and  bowed  gravely  to 
us  before  it  began  to  droop  and  drift 
away. 

It  is  no  easy  thing,  this  piecing  together 
of  the  fragments  of  memory  wherewith  to 
make  a  story— fragments  of  things  seen 
swiftly,  and,  as  it  were,  in  a  haze,  and  of 
things  felt,  for  the  most  part,  subconsciously. 
He  who  would  paint  such  a  picture  must, 
above  all,  be  honest  with  himself,  and 
must  remember,  too,  that  he  cannot  attem'pt 
to  retain  on  paper  that  dignity  which  he 
has  cast  utterly  away  in  the  sands . 

From  the  middle  of  November  onwards 
the  aeroplane  became  a  more  or  less 
regular  feature  of  our  lives,  and  by  its  aid 
we  were  enabled  to  reduce  our  weather  fore- 
casts to  within  the  limits  of  an  epigram  : 
"  If  it  blows — hell  !  if  it  doesn't— bombs  !  " 
Strangely  enough,  we  preferred  it  not  to 
blow . 

Thirty  seconds  of  bomb  -  dodging,  we 
argued,  was  better  anyway  than  twelve 
hours  of  burrowing  in  sand  to  escape  sand. 


WAR'S   GRIM   JESTS  155 

and  besides,  once  the  panicky  novelty  of 
the  Taube  had  worn  off  we  found  more  of 
humour  in  its  visits,  and  less  of  that  empty 
feeling  at  the  pit  of  the  stomach  which — 
as  you  apply  it  to  yourself  or  to  others — is 
called  variously  "  excitement  "  and  "  fear." 

For  instance,  neither  excitement  nor  fear 
were  present,  but  only  laughter,  choking 
and  helpless,  when,  some  weeks  later,  the 
airman  disturbed  us  at  Divine  Service  in  the 
sands . 

From  the  beginning  of  things  we  had 
always  regarded  that  Sunday  morning  ser- 
vice as  something  of  an  imposition.  In  a 
country  where  there  was  no  visible  tempta- 
tion, this  al  fresco  salvation  seemed  to  us 
a  distinct  waste  of  good  leisure  time,  and 
we  barely,  listened  to  the  droning  voice  ex- 
horting us  in  terms  of  the  Old  Testament 
to  soul-heroics  as  forceful  as  out  of  date. 
Now  and  again  some  one  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  pulpit— a  colour-sergeant  looking 
for  promotion  in  both  worlds,  probably — 
would  chant  through  his  nose  the  opening 
bars  of  a  hymn,  and  we  would  rise  and 
shuffle  our  feet  until  the  noise  ceased  and 
we  could  sit  down  again. 

At   what    period   of   the   service,    whether 


156         WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

before  or  after  the  De  Profundts,  the 
interruption  came,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  say.  I 
know  that  upon  one  moment  I  was  looking 
at  the  ragged  toe-caps  of  my  boots  and 
wondering  how  long  they,  would  last,  and 
upon  the  next  I  was  on  my  feet  shouting 
into  a  chorus  of  hundreds  :  "  Aeroplane  1 
aeroplane  !  " 

It  was  a  biplane  this  time,  and  it  was 
travelling  at  an  immense  speed  towards  us. 
There  was  no  mistaking  its  objective.  The 
hundreds  of  us  massed  together  in  one  spot 
must  have  presented  too  tempting  a  mark, 
and  the  roar  of  its  engine  grew  in  our  ears 
almost  faster  than  our  minds  grasj>ed  the 
fact  that  Divine  Service,  for  the  day  at 
leasts  was  ended. 

But  was  it?  We  still  stood  in  something 
of  the  congregational  order  in  which  we 
had  been  paraded  earlier  on  that  morning, 
and  there,  on  the  impromptu  pulpit,  and 
looking  like  a  black  exclamation  mark 
against  the  pale  sky,  still  remained  the 
surpliced  figure  which  had  held  all  but  our 
attention  for  the  full  hour  past.  The  form 
of  subjugation  to  herd-principles  which  is 
known  as  "  discipline  "  held  us  rooted  to  the 
spot .  What  would  the  padre  do  ?  We  were 
under   orders.      He   was    the  most   tangible 


WAR'S   GRIM    JESTS  157 

expression  of  those  orders  in  sight,  and  we 
watched  him  as  sheep  may  watch  the  old 
bell-wether  of  the  floCk. 

Our  suspense  was  soon  over.  Twice  the 
padre  craned  his  neck  and  looked  upwards 
at  the  'plane,  now  circling  almost  directly, 
overhead,  and  twice  he  looked  down  at  the 
book  in  his  hand.  To  me,  watching,  it 
seemed  that  he  was  debating  in  his  mind 
some  question  of  comparative  values,  which, 
taking  everything  into  consideration,  he 
might  very  well  have  been  doing.  One 
more  upward  glance  he  gave,  and  then, 
with  an  almost  indescribably  feminine  grace 
of  action,  swept  up  the  skirts  of  his 
surplice,  and— there  is  no  other  expression 
for  it — bolted  like  a  rabbit. 

The  fact  that  no  one  was  killed,  or  even 
injured,  by  the  bombs  that  followed  was 
completely  lost  sight  of  in  the  helpless 
laughter  that  held  us  at  intervals  through- 
out the  remainder  of  that  memorable  Sunday. 

What  remains  to  be  said  of  a  campaign 
in  which  bombs  during  Divine 'Service  made 
us  laugh,  and  whereby  those  who  took  part 
gained  nothing  but  an  imperishable  memory 
of  thirst,  and  a  robust  and  practical  philo- 
sophy of  the  sort  that  made  the  Irishman 
whom   I  have  quoted  earlier  in  this  record 


158  WITH    BOTHA'S   ARMY 

"  praise  the  Saints  thim  ants  have  no  bones 
into  thim  !  " 

Listen  to  a  group  of  us  talking — I  speak 
not  of  myself,  of  course,  for  I  have  talked 
much  in  these  pages — and  between  the 
adjectives  you  will  hear  much  of  quaint 
trifles  that  do  not,  properly  speaking,  belong 
to  war,  and  very  little  of  the  grim  things 
that    do . 

A  page  of  photographs,  taken  at  random 
from  almost  any  English  weekly  paper,  will 
hold  more  of  real  war  than  the  combined 
experiences  of  all  of  us  could  show,  and 
therein,  as  you  may  guess,  lies  the  key  to 
our  reticence. 

You  cannot  photograph  discomfort,  or  a 
sandstorm,  or  thirst,  any  more  than  you 
can  photograph  humour. 

Ah  !  if  you  could,  you  would  understand 
why  the  curse  and  the  jest  are  the  language 
of  campaigns,  and  why  this  faithful  narra- 
tive must  convey  a  dispiriting  sense  of  much 
continuously  suffered  and  little  occasionally 
achieved.  It  is  the  fault  of  war  :  for  among 
the  finished  operations  of  war  General 
Botha's  drive  of  the  Germans  in  South  West 
Africa  really  stands  out  as  brilliantly  con- 
ceived, swiftly  carried  out,  and  emphatically 
successful. 


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